PAUL Broadbent issued an apology to the fans after his York City Knights side crashed to a 29-12 defeat against Gateshead Thunder.

The Knights opened their National League Division Two campaign in front of a healthy 1,271 crowd at Huntington Stadium last night, but a shock result saw the title favourites lose 29-12 to one of the league's underdogs.

Player-coach Broadbent said the club's long injury list would prevent him from making many changes for the tough trip to Sheffield Eagles on Monday, but declared this should give the players who under-performed a chance to make up for it.

He said: "Everybody that put a shirt on yesterday should give an apology to the people who paid to see the match.

"The people who came to watch deserved to see a good contest but I don't think our guys were up for it. It will be something we will be addressing when we come in to train on Sunday.

"We've got 48 hours to put things right. Everybody is pretty down about it and I'm pretty upset."

The defeat, coming on the back of the loss to Featherstone in the final Arriva Trains Cup group game five days ago, means the Knights have now suffered two reverses on the trot for the first time in two months.

This follows four wins in five ATC matches, two of which came against Sheffield, and Broadbent was hopeful his side could bounce back quickly to complete a hat-trick of victories against his former club.

"It all shows how, within the space of a couple of weeks, things can seriously deteriorate but we've got to address the problems and try to get ourselves back on the front foot," he said. It's a big ask within 48 hours but I would imagine that everybody's pride alone should make them play better.

"We're a bit limited (as regards making changes) at the moment because of injuries, and it's fortunate for quite a few of the guys as they will get the chance to redeem themselves.

"But I've said before we've got to be able to weather these kinds of things. I don't believe our injury list was the reason behind our display. Gateshead played with far more enthusiasm and they played us off the park.

"When you look at the territorial advantage we had we should have been able to turn that into a lot more points.

"In the end they had more desire and they created their own luck."

He added: "I put myself in the same category as everybody else. It's a team game and we're all in it together and we've got to turn it round together."

"A professional should produce consistency and quality every time he plays his sport, but we're just up and down and not producing the consistency.

"We've got to put that right."

Updated: 11:21 Saturday, April 19, 2003