York Knights head coach Mark Applegarth has moved to allay any injury concerns around Paul Vaughan and Josh Griffin.
The pair were left out of York’s friendly clash with Huddersfield Giants at the Accu Stadium, where they were beaten 22-4 by Luke Robinson’s side.
The Knights had plenty of new signings in their line-up, but it wasn’t enough to pick up what would have been an encouraging victory, with Ben Jones-Bishop going over for their only try of the game.
York were notably without star off-season recruit Vaughan, though, prompting questions about his fitness, while former Wakefield Trinity and Hull FC man Griffin was also amongst those missing from Applegarth’s line-up.
Newcastle Thunder man King Vuniyayawa was named in Vaughan’s absence, but the York head coach has stressed that he has no fears over the two missing forwards.
“We didn’t want to play Paul Vaughan so King was the naturally someone we were glad Newcastle allowed us to play,” Applegarth said after the game. “That’s one of the benefits of the partnership, that you have that transferability, I’m really glad and thankful to Newcastle for that.
“Paul Vaughan, we’ll probably look at giving him a run out in Cup game prior the Hull KR game and hopefully we’ll all be ready to go come round one.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that he was carrying an injury at the back end of his stint at Warrington. All we’ve done is just built him back up into it. We’ve just looked after him a bit there but he’s fully running and in full contact.
“I just felt it was a little bit too early to drop him into a game environment. If we needed to play Paul Vaughan today, Paul Vaughan could have played.
“It’s just me, purely as a coach, choosing not to risk him today, similar to Josh Griffin, and just save them because we’re going to need some big minutes out of them come the Super League season.”
Applegarth also confirmed that Scott Galeano picked up a slight shoulder injury during the game but he has no real concerns about that one.
“Scotty got a bit a shoulder bump at the end but he’s fine,” the York Knights boss added. “With it being a friendly we didn’t want to risk it. As far as I’m aware, no one else has an injury of concern.”
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