MARK Applegarth is anticipating a response when Hull FC come to visit this evening – and called for his York Knights troops to stand up to the challenge.
York find themselves in something of a purple patch following back-to-back victories in the Betfred Super League, having beaten both Castleford Tigers and Huddersfield Giants in successive weeks.
Those two victories have raised the spirits in the Knights camp, with Applegarth’s team riding the wave having dragged their points total up to eight.
The back-to-back wins for York would become all the sweeter if the Knights were able to record three consecutive wins on Thursday night, as a struggling Hull FC come to the LNER Community Stadium (8pm).
And whilst he’s expecting a tough test against an FC side that have lost their last three matches in a row, he wants his team to nail their own game before worrying too much about their visitors.
“When you are where we are at, at the moment, you need to make sure that you’re happy with the brand of rugby and the consistency that you’re serving up first and foremost,” Applegarth said in this week’s press conference.
“We’ve definitely been chasing that this year and that’s what we’re still chasing.
“Obviously we are aware of our opposition, we’d be fools to not have one eye on that, but 90 per cent of our focus tends to be on ourselves.
“We need to make sure we are happy with the brand we are serving up, there are still areas of our game that we need to sharpen up on.
“We need to be ruthless and clinical when we get teams in certain spots, and likewise, when teams have us in certain areas, we need to make sure we show a little bit more resilience.
“I know Lasty [Andy Last, Hull FC interim coach] very well, I coached with Lasty for a few years.
“He’s an excellent coach, a very good coach and a very proud Hull man.
“We know that they will be expecting a response on Thursday night, it’s a straight shootout, both equal on points and whoever wins gets that two points on the opposition.
“We’re expecting the best version of FC and will be prepared for that, but at the same time, we’ll be doing as we have all year and be putting the main focus on ourselves, chasing that consistency in what we’re about.”
FC are expected to be reeling after their latest defeat, which came against bitter rivals Hull KR on Magic Weekend.
It continued an unwanted record against their biggest rivals, as game two of Magic Weekend presented a 26-12 scoreline at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
The Hull derby took centre stage following on from York’s win over Huddersfield, but Applegarth and his coaching team didn’t stick around to watch.
Applegarth explained: “When you scout a team, you tend to watch it live and do your video after it.
“We caught it on the way home, it was a tough game obviously and Hull have been doing it tough with injuries themselves.”
The Knights have already gotten the better of Hull FC this campaign, with a 17-16 victory in East Yorkshire last February.
Applegarth doesn’t believe the circumstances will match when the two face each other again this week, with FC having John Cartwright – now at Catalans Dragons – as their boss for the first encounter.
With Last now at the helm, Applegarth digested some of FC’s threats to his Knights team.
“They are both great coaches,” Applegarth complimented. “Hull FC will be the same as us, chasing consistency in what they do.
“We’re expecting a tough game, a very physical game, [Aidan] Sezer and [Jake] Arthur have got some great play in them.
“They’ve got some excellent young players as well as some great experience, they have threats throughout the field.
“I think they have a good blend of some older heads, [Zak] Hardaker, [Tom] Briscoe, mixed with some of the younger heads, like [Lewis] Martin, [Davy] Litten, I think that Harvey Barron will be back in there.
“They’ve signed well too, Harvey Hill from Wigan, [Joe] Batchelor coming in and James Bell.
“They’ve got some quality players in there and we know we need to be aware of all of that, but at the same time it’s pointless [unless] we’re happy with that brand we’re serving up as well.”
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