Tubby Aston was right.

[Andy Knight]

Don’t know if anyone can remember the pre match interview with Tubby Aston on OURLEAGUE before our league game with Sheffield at the LNER stadium? It sums up how all coaches know how we play and what defensively they need to put in place.

I seem to remember the interviewer asking Mark Aston “what and how do you expect the knights to play tonight Mark?” 

Tubby answered by saying, York play to a system that’s served them well the last few seasons, they’ve perfected it and are very ridged in their style of play. I could go through every play of each set if you want as it’s very much the same every set dependant on where they are on the pitch. If we play to our defensive patterns to nullify them in each of them areas then there’s nothing there that we should worry about or have trouble with dealing with against their attack. 

Seven games on and you watch that today and you can see we are so predictable in attack. It’s percentage rugby, no thrills just one man rugby. We’ve been long found out now. 

Love Fordy and what he’s done for the club, he’s stuck by the club through thick or thin and I’d like to think US fans and the club will stick by him but please James can we let them handcuffs off this side as we are way underperforming. 

New stadium, new hope at the start of the season. People were talking about this York side with excitement. If we are looking to fill them seats and get people to travel out to Huntington to watch games needs an entertaining side, otherwise I fear it will be just us die hard that have followed the club for years through the good, bad and the ugly that will be the only ones turning out there. The style of rugby on offer isn’t going to encourage new followers if I’m honest. 

Tubby was right with his summary of us. We are one dimensional. It’s still early days but this season we look a mid table side at best. 

I fear for us against Fev in the final. We look paper thin in defence and toothless in attack. Fev if they are on their game could have a field day.

 Just like most on this forum, the club is a huge part of my life and has been for 45+ years. It hurts to see us lose any game but it’s hurting even more seeing us this season with a side that looks great on paper but is very much underachieving out on the paddock. I can forgive lack of talent if the efforts there, we’ve had loads of players that haven’t had bags of ability over the years but they’ve run through walls at the club with effort even in sides and seasons where we’ve been the embarrassment of the league (I’m sure you’ll remember them days of getting stuffed by 70, 80 points at the likes of Rochdale, Widnes etc). We’ve never really had stars at York but this year it was wow can’t believe they’ve signed for us but some of them big names just ain’t delivering at the moment. It's very much deflating watching us these days as you do expect more from this side but saying that...It is York.  

Fingers crossed we can turn a corner.  

 

[RobertAM]

Gotta admit I thought, given the talent assembled, the club would be doing a lot better. Maybe split the fixtures with Toulouse and Fev but winning against the rest of the field. what's missing?..is it indeed abandoning wide open attack in favour of adhering to a rigid system as many of u have stated? anyhow watching as I am from afar I sure hope things come together for the Kneets. best of luck from Toronto.

 

[DEANO]

3 hours ago, Andy Knight said:

Don’t know if anyone can remember the pre match interview with Tubby Aston on OURLEAGUE before our league game with Sheffield at the LNER stadium? It sums up how all coaches know how we play and what defensively they need to put in place.

I seem to remember the interviewer asking Mark Aston “what and how do you expect the knights to play tonight Mark?” 

Tubby answered by saying, York play to a system that’s served them well the last few seasons, they’ve perfected it and are very ridged in their style of play. I could go through every play of each set if you want as it’s very much the same every set dependant on where they are on the pitch. If we play to our defensive patterns to nullify them in each of them areas then there’s nothing there that we should worry about or have trouble with dealing with against their attack. 

Seven games on and you watch that today and you can see we are so predictable in attack. It’s percentage rugby, no thrills just one man rugby. We’ve been long found out now. 

Love Fordy and what he’s done for the club, he’s stuck by the club through thick or thin and I’d like to think US fans and the club will stick by him but please James can we let them handcuffs off this side as we are way underperforming. 

New stadium, new hope at the start of the season. People were talking about this York side with excitement. If we are looking to fill them seats and get people to travel out to Huntington to watch games needs an entertaining side, otherwise I fear it will be just us die hard that have followed the club for years through the good, bad and the ugly that will be the only ones turning out there. The style of rugby on offer isn’t going to encourage new followers if I’m honest. 

Tubby was right with his summary of us. We are one dimensional. It’s still early days but this season we look a mid table side at best. 

I fear for us against Fev in the final. We look paper thin in defence and toothless in attack. Fev if they are on their game could have a field day.

 Just like most on this forum, the club is a huge part of my life and has been for 45+ years. It hurts to see us lose any game but it’s hurting even more seeing us this season with a side that looks great on paper but is very much underachieving out on the paddock. I can forgive lack of talent if the efforts there, we’ve had loads of players that haven’t had bags of ability over the years but they’ve run through walls at the club with effort even in sides and seasons where we’ve been the embarrassment of the league (I’m sure you’ll remember them days of getting stuffed by 70, 80 points at the likes of Rochdale, Widnes etc). We’ve never really had stars at York but this year it was wow can’t believe they’ve signed for us but some of them big names just ain’t delivering at the moment. It's very much deflating watching us these days as you do expect more from this side but saying that...It is York.  

Fingers crossed we can turn a corner.  

 

I said this after about 3 games and got shouted down

[Nearenough]

18 hours ago, Andy Knight said:

It’s percentage rugby, no thrills just one man rugby. We’ve been long found out now. 

spot on and sadly the percentages no longer add up to anything other than gettin hammered by the decent teams

its all one big mess and we cant change it till the off season when hopefully we can drag some young hungry players out of somewhere and reform our mindset and restore our pace and stamina.

[YCKonstantine]

1 hour ago, Nearenough said:

spot on and sadly the percentages no longer add up to anything other than gettin hammered by the decent teams

its all one big mess and we cant change it till the off season when hopefully we can drag some young hungry players out of somewhere and reform our mindset and restore our pace and stamina.

 Not to be THAT guy, but what do new young players matter when they’re just going to be told to play the same old boring way?

[Nearenough]

agree 100%, thats why we have to "reform our mindset". to play devils advocate '1 out rugby' with a kick to the corner isnt a useless strategy by default but it is you dont complete your sets, dont kick well, dont have line speed and dont defend.

BUT even done properly its still boring as.

i went to the bradford game and much as it pains me to say it the way they moved the ball and put pressure on everything we did was embarrassing compared to our leaden footed 1D approach. 

[Simon Hall]

11 hours ago, Nearenough said:

agree 100%, thats why we have to "reform our mindset". to play devils advocate '1 out rugby' with a kick to the corner isnt a useless strategy by default but it is you dont complete your sets, dont kick well, dont have line speed and dont defend.

BUT even done properly its still boring as.

i went to the bradford game and much as it pains me to say it the way they moved the ball and put pressure on everything we did was embarrassing compared to our leaden footed 1D approach. 

It's a boring tactic for the first 20 minutes, then if it's executed properly the opposition are fatigued and you can break loose or grind out a win, which worked really well in 2019. Unfortunately it seems we're still trying to play that tactic when we've made numerous stupid errors & penalties in the first half and we've got no halfbacks who can organise or kick the opposition into corners, or forwards who can win the wrestle and stop quick a PTB, or actually get off the floor quickly to defend, so it's us who's tired, then the opposition can get a roll on. 

Then when all your backs can do is run the ball in every third set to give the tired forwards a rest, you end up with tired backs who can't do any of the good stuff, like follow up on a (very rare) break or make a sensible decision on the 5th tackle. We can get away with it against Oldham or Swinton but any of the better sides will do what Halifax and Bradford did, which is give us a good old pumping. 

Cut out the silly early errors, penalties & six agains and we'd look a different side.

I'm sure everyone is working as hard as they can to sort it but the same problems are there every game, I just hope we get some entertainment on Sunday.