Kingstone Press League 1 Preview: York City Knights v Oxford

York City Knights moved up into second place following their 38-10 win at Coventry Bears.

Coach James Ford said: “We were pleased to get the two points last week and parts of the performance were pretty good but there were parts that we need to improve on and we’ll be trying to do that this week against Oxford.

“We’re not really looking at the league table, it doesn’t matter until the last round. We’re focusing on ourselves and our performance. We were a little bit annoyed at how we played down in Oxford at the start of the season, we didn’t give a fair representation of our ability and we want to set the record straight, so we’re keen to perform to an outstanding level this week.”

Oxford coach Tim Rumford said he was very disappointed with the 42-12 defeat at London Skolars.

“In this league the week-in, week-out rigours on part-time players is pretty tough, there are no free weekends and it is a factor. We expected to do better at London and we let ourselves down, particularly our attitude to defence,” he said.

“We gave a lot of penalties away and just invited London Skolars to attack in our half. We’re in a bit of a slump, but we know it doesn’t last forever. It’s how we respond.

“We’ve picked up a few injuries and lost our dual-reg players, it’s all a factor but it’s not an excuse for us to put the cue on the rack.

“We’ve got York this week and it doesn’t get any easier. I think with the squad they’ve got they could challenge some Championship teams.

“But we can’t respect them with regards to what they might do, we’ve got to go there and treat this game as a bit of a cup final. Being competitive for 80 minutes would be a big plus for us.”