York Knights will travel to Wigan Warriors tonight to kick off round five of Super League.
The Knights have won two of their opening four league games, and along with the two other promoted sides have adapted incredibly well to the division above.
However, they face arguably their toughest test so far in the Warriors, who have made an unbeaten start to the season, and in their six games in all competitions have conceded an average of less than eight points per game.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for how Wigan and set up their club and the DNA that they have,” the boss explained as he previewed tonight’s opponents in a weekly press conference.
“They’re always a youth-first mentality. They’ll back the youth that they’ve got in the ranks and I think Farrimond and Co. definitely validate that.
“I think they’ve added a nice ad-lib style of rugby off the back of offloads. You can tell they’ve put a lot of work into that. You throw in there the traditional Wigan DNA too of being methodical in defence and hard hitting.
“We know we’re going to have to be at our best but in saying that, we know where we need to improve and we’re looking forward to the challenge.”
Despite winning 56-10 against Keighley Cougars and progressing through to the Challenge Cup quarter finals at the weekend, Applegarth wasn’t fully convinced with York’s performance, and knows his side will need to be near-perfect if they are to pull off what would be a shock result.
He explained: “I don’t think we’re fully there yet, but in patches we’re showing what we can do. We’ve got to start piecing it all together.
“It goes without saying we can’t afford a slow start like we did against Warrington.
“Little areas like that, phases of play, making sure that people stay in the moment and concentrate and don’t have them little lapses that can cost you heavily such as we found out against Warrington.”
Issuing somewhat of a challenge to his side, Applegarth continued: “We started a little bit slow and we were 16-0 down after 10-12 minutes. We don’t want to be that team that’s known for fighting back.
“We want to be dominant. We want to be playing on the front foot but that’s not just going to get given to us either.”
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