Knights' spectacle with Oldham a 'great advert' for Championship, says Applegarth

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MARK Applegarth believes that York Knights' match with Oldham is a great advertisement for Betfred Championship rugby.

The Knights welcome an Oldham side that have impressed in the Championship this campaign, so far reaching 24 points and fourth position in their debut campaign back in the second tier.

Oldham, similarly to York, have also been previously vocal on their high ambitions to reach the Betfred Super League, with both teams making strides towards reaching the top flight on the field this season.

Applegarth believes that Sunday's game at the LNER Community Stadium (3pm) will be a great advertisement for the league, but is also wary that Oldham will 'smell blood' after injuries to Liam Harris and Sam Cook.

"I'd like to think so [a great advertisement], you could argue that you could play any of the top nine, and they are great spectacles," Applegarth told the Press.

"Definitely, I'd like to think that it will be a good game and hopefully we can come out on the right side of it.

"You've got two very evenly-matched teams going at each other, and I'm just looking at the field now, it looks in outstanding condition.

"Hopefully we get the weather with us, and it's just about who shows up on the day.

"Naturally, we get a lot of headlines because we've been knocking a few wins out, but we're under no illusions.

"People will be smelling blood too, they'll see that we've lost our captain [Harris] and lost Cooky, and we've got to make sure that we show them what we're about.

"We'll stand up, we'll be counted without our skipper and one of our pivotal players that comes off of the bench."

The last time that York fought against Oldham, it was the opening day of the Championship season when the Knights sunk to an underwhelming 50-4 at Boundary Park.

Applegarth's side have come a long way since that opening day, currently leading the way in the Championship, with York now also on a 13 match winning run.

Despite that defeat too, the Knights Head Coach never had doubts that his side would find their feet and go on to have an excellent campaign, admitting to being confident that they would recover after starting the season with three straight league losses.

"To be fair, I was always confident," Applegarth confessed, "It's interesting when you go through a couple of losses, because you soon find out people's character.

"It was obviously not the start to the league that we wanted.

"One thing that really impressed me with the playing group was that I knew we had a tough group, but it was really interesting to a few people around us that we started to see a few thing that we weren't expecting.

"Oldham were outstanding in that first game, we got rightly what we deserved, which was a thumping.

"It definitely helped and acted as a catalyst to what we've got now.

"We're under no illusions, we need to bring out another performance to make sure that we carry on doing what we want to do.

"Oldham will be setting their sights on cutting that deficit and getting where they want to be too."

Oldham's visit to the LNER Community Stadium also brings a friendly face, with Applegarth sharing a strong relationship with opposing Head Coach Sean Long.

Applegarth is looking forward to challenge of facing Long, but admitted that he felt as if the Oldham Head Coach had benefitted from the headlines being put onto York rather than the Roughyeds this campaign.

Applegarth explained: "I think that Oldham have been outstanding this year, Longy is a good mate of mine and I speak to him regularly.

"He's been lucky in a way, because obviously all of the headlines have been on ourselves, Bradford and Toulouse, but Oldham are right in the mix for that end of season run in.

"They will have their own ambitions of winning that league too, so we're under no illusions that it will be a tough game.

"So far this year, Oldham have been a team that outplayed us on the first day of the year.

"Structurally, they broke us down and we got left with our tails between our legs.

"We need to be better, simple as that.

"They are very well coached and I love Longy as a coach, when I coached with him I learned loads from him, I really gelled with him.

"I'm looking forward to doing battle with him again from a coaching point of view.

"The main thing is that you'll have two really good Championship teams going at each other on Sunday, and hopefully we can put on a great spectacle for everybody."

Applegarth also alerted supporters to where he believes Oldham's threats lie, highlighting certain positions on the pitch where he felt the visitors could hurt York.

The Knights Head Coach detailed: "They've got a few [threats], their pivots are really good. Matty Wildie does a cracking job at nine, similarly to what Macca [Paul McShane] does for us when he's at nine.

"[Josh] Drinkwater, Morgan Smith or potentially Riley Dean, depending on who they've got, they are great pivots.

"They've got some really strong outside-backs that get them forward, and they've also got two back-rowers that we know really well in Matty Ashurst and Elijah Taylor.

"They are both quality players, I obviously coached Tash for a number of years at Wakefield, so I know what he's about."