MARK Applegarth admitted to chasing a ‘perfection’ that he’ll never get with York Knights despite an encouraging run of form.
York look to have turned the tide after winning three on the bounce, with victories over Castleford Tigers, Huddersfield Giants and most recently Hull FC, who they beat 20-16 last Thursday.
It comes after a challenging period for the Knights in which they sunk to the bottom two in the Betfred Super League, but after recent results, Applegarth’s side are starting to look upwards.
The Knights head coach has identified areas of his team’s game that he still wants them to improve on, and he hopes to see that put into practice on Saturday when York make the trip overseas to Toulouse Olympique.
Asked about whether he had seen a bubbling attitude in his squad following their good run of form, Applegarth admitted: “To be fair, we’ve been the same regardless.
“We’re just chasing that consistency in our performance.
“It’s always nice when you get your rewards at the end of it and get a win, but there’s still loads we need to get after and want to get after.
“You’re always chasing perfection, you’re never going to get it, but you’re always chasing it.
“You’re trying to create a culture of excellence and that’s what we’re all after.
“I’m really proud of the behaviours that we’ve demonstrated, but at the same time, there are loads of technical aspects that we want to be better at and more consistent at.”
York got that win over Hull FC with a spirited performance, coming from behind at half-time to keep their visitors to zero tries, whilst the Knights completed the double over their opponents.
With that game coming eight days ago, York have had some additional time to rest up and recover ahead of their visit to Toulouse, with the Knights boss using that chance to work on some extra detailed stuff in training.
“There’s loads for us still get after, I’m really proud of the character and the spirit we showed, but there is loads that we can still fix up,” Applegarth explained.
“I thought that we invited a lot of pressure onto ourselves, coughing up some easy ball.
“We also let them off of the hook a bit with the added penalties we gave away.
“I’m really proud that we backed up Magic’s effort, especially off of a five day turnaround.
“It was good to freshen everyone up after the weekend and everyone has come in on Monday morning, ready for what will be another tough game on Saturday against Toulouse.”
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