Knights boss ‘content’ after Trophy victory (From York Press)

Knights boss ‘content’ after Trophy victory

12:00pm Monday 30th January 2012 in Knights RL By Peter Martini, peter.martini@thepress.co.uk

PLAYER-BOSS Chris Thorman declared himself content with York City Knights’ progress as they set themselves up for the start of competitive action by winning the Paul Higgins Memorial Trophy.

However, it was not a great day all round, as full-back James Haynes and prop Adam Sullivan have now joined big signing Paul King as injury doubts for the Northern Rail Cup opener against Swinton in a fortnight.

Furthermore, the Knights have lost out to Hunslet in getting scrum-half Danny Grimshaw back from Featherstone.

The Knights beat a Castleford XIII 34-14 at Huntington Stadium yesterday in the annual match in memory of the late development guru in York and North Yorkshire, who had previously played for Cas and coached in their junior set-up.

But Haynes suffered bad bruising and nerve damage on a shin – though a fracture is unlikely – after an apparent trip by Castleford’s new Aussie signing James Grehan. Sullivan suffered a deep laceration behind a knee and went to hospital for stitches. King sat the game out with a rib injury.

As for Grimshaw, The Press understands the Knights were going to talk to the 25-year-old today, only to learn that Hunslet had got in there first.

The Hawks re-signed their 2011 players’ player of the year ahead of their friendly defeat to Widnes yesterday.

Thorman, though, now has cover at half-back, with marquee signing Jordan Tansey and rookies Brett Turner and Lee Williams, plus the coach himself, in the ranks, and he said he was happy with where his squad were at following the end of a pre-season fixture programme which has brought two defeats and two wins.

“On the whole I’m content,” he said. “There’s hard work to do between now and the Swinton game. I think Swinton will be a really tough test – they’ve made some decent signings and they’re well-coached – but it’s something I and the team are looking forward to.”

The Knights led 22-0 at half-time yesterday before tailing off after making a clutch of changes, Thorman watching the second half from the sidelines. They had lost their previous outing 32-30 to Hull U20s.

The player-coach said: “There were improvements from last week, which was what we were looking at. We’d said we wanted consistency and consistently improved performances and for the most part we achieved that.

“Defensively, we’d worked hard on tackle technique and controlling the ruck and play-the-ball area, and for long periods we dominated that area, which was pleasing.

“We had a bit more patience with the ball compared to last week, which was also pleasing.

“We had to start well – that was important after last week when we didn’t – and we built pressure.”

As for the controversial collision between Haynes and Grehan, after which the York full-back had to be helped off the field, Thorman said: “I didn’t see it so I can’t comment on that.

“Hopefully he’ll be okay. It’s a collision injury. We’ll know more after it’s settled down.”

Castleford fielded largely an under-20s side but with some first-team squadmen thrown in, including Grehan and former Knights loanees Nathan Massey, John Davies and Jordan Thompson. York-based Sam Orange also featured.

They perhaps did not offer as big a challenge as Hull U20s, but Thorman said: “I think that was because we played much better. There were more big names in the Cas team than in the Hull team and they’ve got a lot of talented players. But I’m more concerned about us and I was pretty happy.”