{"id":544073,"date":"2026-04-22T05:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/544073\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T05:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:08:13","slug":"york-knights-boss-previews-must-win-game-and-offers-radical-championship-restructure-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/544073\/","title":{"rendered":"York Knights boss previews “must-win” game and offers “radical” Championship restructure idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

York Knights will come up against Toulouse Olympique this week in a repeat of the 2025 Championship Grand Final.<\/p>\n

The Knights came up short that day, as the French side secured a 10-8 victory at the LNER Community Stadium, the same venue for Thursday\u2019s Super League clash.<\/p>\n

What makes that result more interesting was the fact that Toulouse didn\u2019t score a try, and relied only on penalty goals to get them through.<\/p>\n

York crossed twice that day, but both tries went unconverted, meaning the Olympians took home the trophy.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s contest gives the Knights a chance to exert revenge on their fellow promoted side, however boss Mark Applegarth has revealed his side haven\u2019t really spoken about that loss in the build-up to the game on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Asked how he thinks Toulouse haved fared this season, Applegarth said: \u201cPretty similar to us, if I\u2019m honest with you.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a hell of a lot of respect for Toulouse and Sylvain.\u00a0I love that they\u2019ve stayed true to their identity as a team.\u00a0Obviously, we\u2019ve got some outstanding players in there,\u00a0led by Olly Ashall-Bott, I think he\u2019s been excellent this year at full-back,\u00a0so we need to have eyes on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re playing exactly how they played in the Championship.\u00a0They play a really attractive brand of rugby league.\u00a0You\u2019ve got to make sure your defensive systems are on point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been in some games where it\u2019s been close.\u00a0Our opponents last week, Leigh, obviously ran them very close.\u00a0I don\u2019t think they\u2019re too dissimilar to us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re learning a few lessons along the way,\u00a0with the core group of the squad that they kept being\u00a0that Championship-winning team in that Grand Final.<\/p>\n

All being well, it\u2019s going to be an excellent match-up for a neutral fan.\u00a0Both teams will be marking this one out as a must-win,\u00a0full respect to Toulouse,\u00a0and may the best team win on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Asked what they can do differently compared to last year\u2019s heart-breaking defeat, the boss added: \u201cListen, it\u2019s a new competition, different circumstances.\u00a0We congratulate Toulouse for the Grand Final win last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game\u2019s won on moments, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0And Toulouse, iced their moments last year. [It\u2019s a] brand-new game,\u00a0brand-new opportunity for both teams,\u00a0and we\u2019re just focussing on fixing up what we need to against Leigh and keep on doing what we felt we did well against Leigh as well.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026We just want to get better game upon game.\u00a0We felt up until a couple of weeks ago\u00a0we\u2019d been getting better game upon game.\u00a0We then had a slight blip [defeats to Huddersfield and Hull KR],\u00a0and then we felt a bit more like ourselves last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

York Knights boss offers \u201cradical\u201d idea over Championship restructure<\/p>\n

One key piece of York\u2019s success this season has been their relationship with Newcastle Thunder in the Championship.<\/p>\n

With the side not having their own estalished academy, the club have formed an agreement with the North East outfit that sees them not only be able send players to and from each other, but both clubs train together on a weekly basis and you will often see Thunder head coach Graham Steadman as part of York\u2019s coaching set-up on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

Applegarth believes more teams should adopt the concept, with their current agreement labelled as a\u00a0 \u201cvital\u201d part of York\u2019s set-up.<\/p>\n

The York boss also believes that some Super League reserve grade clubs could well compete with most second tier teams, and would be more than happy to see the top reserve sides feature weekly against Championship opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the partnership with Newcastle\u2019s an outstanding way of [bringing youngsters through to senior level],\u201d Applegarth said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been vital for us.\u00a0And it\u2019s also great to get players that are on your peripheral but aren\u2019t quite ready for week in, week out\u00a0Super League or first grade rugby, experience at that next level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Clint [Goodchild, CEO] has been very forward thinking there\u00a0and getting it sorted. Hopefully we\u2019ll see a few more clubs follow suit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Explaining his idea of Super League reserve grade teams in the second tier, he said: \u201cI\u2019m pretty radical, shall I say, with my thinking. When I was the head of youth in my old job.\u00a0You know, there were four or five reserves teams\u00a0where you knew they\u2019d compete at a championship level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d have nothing against, getting a real competitive championship\u00a0where you may have some Super League clubs that have got\u00a0reserve teams playing in that.\u00a0I think it\u2019s just a win-win for everyone there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"York Knights will come up against Toulouse Olympique this week in a repeat of the 2025 Championship Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-544073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}