StrennyKnight

Probably goes under the radar a bit at York where the plaudits are concerned. I think he's been one of our most solid and dependable players recently. Hope he continues to have a good, injury-free 2025 with us - and best of luck to him with Hull next year.

Well that was pretty disappointing. York tried hard, had plenty of ball and plenty of good field position but for 60 minutes (10 of that with a man in the bin), Halifax defended resolutely, leaving precious few gaps and just comfortably smothered everything we tried. I don’t particularly agree with the criticism on here of certain players. I thought everyone was putting the effort in, but it just wasn't happening today for some reason. Understandable that Dagger walking off the field without even warming up would have disrupted some attacking plans but Halifax earned the win by converting most of their chances into points. We just couldn't. I was pretty surprised we managed to get close to them at the end with a chance to nick it 5 minutes out - but the try at the hooter give the scoreline a much fairer reflection of the game if I'm honest. Things can, and will improve for us I'm sure....at least the weather was nice today.

If you are coming off the main Malton Road roundabout towards the stadium, take the first left at the next smaller roundabout. That is the Park and Ride car park - it has the height restriction barrier but yes, it is free (and has plenty of spaces). There is usually a bit of a procession to get out after the game but wont take more than 5 or 10 mins to get away. All of the other shopping car parks have time limits on them unless you validate a ticket in store I think.

I'm quite happy with Kieran Buchanan. We're only a few games into the new season, a couple of those saw pretty poor all round team performances and then he's asked to fill in as a winger last weekend. To me he looks a solid player and hopefully once things start to settle down a bit with injuries, he'll move back into a preferred position and we'll see him in his best light. Regarding Levi...To me, yes he's always looked quick and exciting moving over the grass...but he does also look a bit prone to a simple handling error or two (I'm not alluding to the last few moments of the Toulouse game - that could have happened to anyone at such a pressurised stage of a tight game). I seem to remember a game back when Levi first came to the club - before he got his bad injury. He broke clean through a defensive line...Coasting and with a clear run of 50m or so to the try line, unchallenged, he simply threw the ball into touch in front of the main stand. When he's running with the ball under his arm, to me he still gives off those butter finger vibes a little bit... In reality though, I'm just delighted for Levi that he's managed to get back playing - and get back into the team. I do agree that (with a decent run of games, injury free) his confidence will soar and he will become a real handful to any opposition we face.

Wasn't my favourite player in his last stint here - He looked far more interested playing for the Eagles against us than he ever did wearing a York shirt. Maybe things weren't too great behind the scenes when he was with us? Happy for him to prove me wrong though if the rumour is true.

Has Levi requested the best Touch Judges in the game for this one too?

Well that really does add some spice if everyone involved in the incidents at the end will be available again on Sunday (Jack Martin excepted). Thought the footage of the Batley Bradford brawl made ours look quite tame in comparison...

With the conditions being dryer and firmer underfoot (and a little bit less windy), it made today's game so much more enjoyable to watch. Thought York started much more positively going forward than recently and with Harris back in the half back pairing, everything looked so much more fluid - Halifax guilty of making the errors that had been blighting York in recent games. A big effort from McShane to chase the kicker down at a last play early on set the tone and then York looked untroubled for much of the first half. I agree, Reynolds was really solid throughout - and even Potter's handling looked quite assured early on debuting at Full Back. His confidence just drained away though with every error afterwards and his interchange was sadly unavoidable - I just hope he's able to put the errors today behind him and come back stronger when he gets his next chance. Great to see Pemberton finally given some game time and a strong team performance managed to carry them through to the relatively comfortable win at the end. It will be interesting to see how the Disciplinary panel view the final melee(s) and who will be available for both sides in round 2 of the bout next week - The late altercations have certainly set up the Championship game nicely though!

Defensively much more solid, but going forward, really frustrating again today. Yes the conditions were poor but so many handling errors from York, early on in the tackle count too - and then poor choices or execution if we did manage to get to the end of a set. Jordan Thompson as usual stood out going forward but also with great defensive efforts chasing back. Will listen back to Radio York interviews when I get a chance but I would be interested to find out why Taylor Pemberton, finally given an interchange place instead of being 18th, is then only required to jog up and down the touch line for 80 minutes? A couple of interesting knock-on interpretations towards the end of the game at both ends of the field - but thought Toulouse were the least worst side today so no complaints that they took the 2 points back to France. No need to panic too much just yet - but I fear it might be a difficult watch for a little while... Hopefully I'll be proved wrong and it will all fall into place for the visit(s) of Halifax!

https://www.yorkrlfc.com/post/valkyrie-player-departures-confirmed

I've never really understood why it's thought that a GP win either way in extra time is needed to give a regular season game some jeopardy. Surely a level (or very tight) score going into the last few mins of normal time has that excitement already? Golden point definitely has a place in deciding who proceeds in a Cup or Play-off game - but not otherwise for me.

Really enjoyed the program tonight. Lots of interesting points from all three participants. Intriguing to hear from Clint that all Home games are to be live streamed. Did I hear that correctly? I haven't heard this mentioned or announced anywhere before. Do we know where the live stream would be? and how much? I have a Season ticket, so all being well will be down at the LNER watching live anyway, but still interesting to see how popular this proves to be.

As a family, we quite enjoyed doing our mini Predictor league last year...and there is finally now a link to the Predictor game in the menu on the superleague.co.uk website. It's not on the app or functioning properly through the browser at the moment but looks a lot more detailed than previous. Looks like there will be separate Predictors for Championship, League 1 and Women's Super League and all games have weightings in the points available. A bit last minute with the first game on Thursday - but hopefully it launches in time

Knights website says '22nd TBC' but BBC, RFL and TO websites all saying Saturday 23rd I think. We did consider fitting the Saturday Catalan v Cas game into our trip if York was played on the Friday...

Managed to persuade the family that our summer holiday could be built around this game. Ferry from Plymouth to Santander on Wednesday. Driving around the Pyrenees for a week with the ferry back from Bilbao to Portsmouth. Probably utter madness... but I can't wait to try it!