PLAYER-BOSS Paul March has warned his York City Knights team that Rochdale will be a much bigger threat tomorrow than they were at Easter – despite their injury crisis.

And he has reminded his charges how they owe the supporters who make the trip to Spotland a good show to make up for the “embarrassment” of last season.

The Knights beat Rochdale 44-14 at Huntington Stadium only five weeks ago, and the Hornets, deducted nine points for going into administration, remain bottom of Championship One. But the Lancastrians thrashed York 44-10 on their turf last term, and they impressed last week when holding Super League high-fliers Huddersfield to 38-12 in the Challenge Cup fifth round – despite having a makeshift team.

March, pictured, who was at the Galpharm for that tie, said: “Hopefully, we can go there and put the wrongs of last year right. We were embarrassed last year by our own performance and we owe the supporters who travelled over that day. But it will be much tougher than when we played them at home. Spotland is always a hard place to go. We got a touching-up the last time and we’ve got to play to the best of our ability.

“They had a much-improved team last week than that which played us. They’ve a few loan signings from Widnes, with Brett Robinson going well at half-back. But if we concentrate on ourselves, we will be all right.”

The other loanees in the Hornets side were back-rower Matt Strong and prop David Houghton, all three being signed at the 11th hour as boss Darren Shaw had only 14 fit players going into the game, including another newcomer, Adam Thomas, from Leigh.

Liam McGovern, cup-tied last week, should return tomorrow, while Tommy Gallagher might be available again, but Dave Cunliffe completes his four-match suspension following his red card at York, and Casey Mayberry, Mark Brocklehurst, Martin McLoughlin, Paul Raftery and Dave Best remain injured.

Assistant-coach Paul Anderson has been registered as a player.