York looking ahead to play-offs

York City Knights coach Dave Woods says last week’s 48-42 win at Swinton was of no use to his side’s play-off preparations.

“We’ll just write it off,” he said. “I was always confident that we’d win the game, and the tries we scored we made look really easy, but we’ll just forget about it.”

Ryan Esders played his first game for York since he rejoined the club. Woods said: “He did OK. He got three tries and looked strong with the ball in hand.

“For his first run with us, and given that he doesn’t know a few of the blokes, I thought he did well.”

Woods added: “We’re just going to play our game this week. It doesn’t do anything to the table whether we win or lose. We can’t catch Oldham, they’re going to be at least second.

“We just want to go out there and work hard for ourselves and see what we can get out of it.”

Woods could name an unchanged line-up, while Neil Roden, Luke Sutton and Craig Robinson are back in contention for the Roughyeds.

Oldham RLFC coach Tony Benson is demanding major improvements after last week’s 42-24 defeat against South Wales.

He said: “It’s the effort that we’ve got to get right. We’ve got to put a lot more effort in.

“We’ve got to get a bit mentally tougher. It’s the little things that we didn’t do, and they’re the things that take the extra effort. It’s about playing for each other, and I’m confident it’ll come together this week.

“It’s the next step on the road to the semi-finals and we’ve got to make improvements.”