The Knights’ opening day of the Betfred Championship season did not live up to the excitement for York, with Applegarth’s side falling to a deserved 50-4 defeat to league newcomers Oldham.
A slow start from York allowed Oldham to get points on the board early on, courtesy of tries from Matty Ashurst and Pheonix Laulu-Togaga’e, as well as impressive kicking from Kieran Dixon to gift the Roughyeds a relatively comfortable 16-0 lead.
The Knights did give the away supporters something to cheer as Joe Brown registered a try from Liam Harris’ pass, but it would be short-lived, with Oldham proving too clinical for York to handle.
Tries from Matty Wildie, braces for Dixon and Jumah Sambou, as well as a late second for Ashurst were all complimented by a perfect conversion rate from Dixon, as Oldham ran out 50-4 victors at Boundary Park.
Applegarth dismissed the performance of his side and was frustrated by their lack of preparation ahead of the fixture, admitting that it was a ‘disjointed’ display from the Knights.
“You can’t hide away, it’s alright getting the smoke blowed up your backside, but once you’ve had a bit of a towelling such as that, you’ve got to be honest with each other,” Applegarth vexed after the match.
“That includes myself as a coach, we’ve got to make sure that we prepare properly and players have got to make sure that they prepare properly.
“More importantly, you’ve got to look at what we served up as a team.
“50 points is not where we need to be as a team, it’s a bit embarrassing.
“I don’t want to take any credit away from Oldham, but we also need to look at where our own defensive standards and application are as well.
“Credit to Oldham, I thought we got completely outplayed.
“That first-half especially, Oldham came out of the blocks firing and obviously had a game plan, stuck to it.
“I think we made life easy for them with our own sloppy start.
“It was an 80 minute performance where just looked disjointed and disconnected, we’ve had a few honest words in there.
“I don’t know if we’ve fallen in love with ourselves a bit over this last period, thinking that teams would just roll over for us if we did dip out toes in.
“We’ve been served a lesson, so hopefully it can serve its purpose going into next week.”
A large number of Oldham attacks and tries came down the right-hand side, with the Roughyeds clearly executing a plan set out by their Head Coach Sean Long.
Applegarth praised the opponents for their application throughout the 80 minutes, but confessed to feeling as if his side made it easy for Oldham in a shaky defensive performance – mixed with poor discipline, which included a sin-bin for Ata Hingano.
“They’ve definitely spotted something there that they like, I thought that they were methodical in how they stuck to their game plan.
“I don’t think we helped ourselves with the penalties, the knock-ons, you can’t invite a team with that sort of strike into there and especially when you’ve turned up not at the best.
“You’ve got to give full credit to Oldham, they were ruthless for 80 minutes on us.
“We knew Oldham would be a really stiff challenge, they are a fantastic team that have got some threat.
“We knew exactly what to expect, how we showed up with our own attitude is just not how we should be.
“There will definitely be a few looking in that mirror today, thinking if they did everything they could to prepare properly for the game.
“It starts with me, I’ll have a look and see if we’ve prepared how we should have done, because it’s important that I look at myself first.
“It’s definitely a bit of a wake up call going into next week.”
Applegarth made two changes to his squad from their defeat to Hull KR last week, with Brenden Santi and Connor Bailey both absent from the team.
The Knights Head Coach confirmed that whilst Bailey’s absence was due to illness, Santi’s was more of a tactical decision.
To make matters worse for York too, captain Liam Harris suffered a head injury which will see him miss next Sunday’s return to the LNER Community Stadium against Toulouse Olympique (3pm).
“Connor had flu, Santi was just selection wise.
“Connor has had flu all week so he hasn’t trained, and Santi, we thought he could do with a week out and we could go in a different direction with the team selection.
“Liam Harris will be out next week, he got a category one head knock at the end.
“Macca [Paul McShane] got a head knock, but he passed his HIA.
“We’ll just have to look at one or two after that, but Liam will definitely be missing next week with a category one head knock.”
The Knights could welcome back Ukuma Ta’ai, who is yet to make an appearance this season, with Applegarth explaining: “It’s some issues off of the field that we wanted to sort out.
“He’s been training and has been excellent, so we’re just waiting for that to get all sorted.
“He should be available soon.”
