Kingstone Press League 1 Preview: London Skolars v York City Knights

London Skolars coach Jermaine Coleman was frank in his assessment of the team’s performance against Swinton Lions.

“We weren’t very good,” he said. “Swinton are a very clinical team, probably at the pinnacle of our league and that’s where we need to be at.

“In many ways this week is a worst case scenario because it’s the other team that in my opinion are head and shoulders above the rest of the group and again have got the potential to play very fast, as Swinton do.

“But in a roundabout way, it’s probably the best game for us to play because we’ve just been up against it so we know exactly what level we need to be at in order to compete.

“It’s a challenge and what better challenge than to go back against a team who appear to be doing exactly the same thing.”

York City Knights had to play most of their match against Oxford with 12 men after prop Jack Aldous was sent off.

Coach James Ford said: “I was pleased to get the points obviously. Being down to 12 men made things really difficult. We had to change everything, our defensive patterns, our systems with the ball and I thought the players did a good job.

“It would have been easy to become flustered being a man down but they stuck together. Oxford had a real go at us and should be proud of what they did but I was really pleased we had the character to make sure we got the league points.

“It will be another tough game this weekend. Obviously the travelling will make it difficult and London are much-improved under Jermaine Coleman. I know they got beat comfortably by Swinton but they performed really well against Gloucester All Golds not too long ago and pushed Newcastle pretty close as well.

“I think they are possibly the most improved team in the league. We’ve got a couple of injuries, James Haynes has a suspected ACL rupture so we won’t see him again this season.

“There are a few other bumps and bruises that you would expect at this time of the season so we’ll see how we travel.”