York return for Hunslet stars

Correspondent

Richard Blakeway (groin) is York’s major injury doubt, while Jordan Ross (knee) and Chris Thorman are also expected to be sidelined.

Last week York became the first team to beat Oldham in this year’s Co-operative Championship One campaign, winning 34-28 at the Whitebank Stadium.

Knights director of rugby Dave Woods said: “We played well for about 70 minutes. We had blokes that were injured, but I just asked for a bit of commitment and they all had a dig.”

He added: “Hunslet have got a lot of York-based players that are coming back here. They’re playing well as a team and we’ll just have to make sure we complete our sets like we did last week.”

Hunslet’s Richard Knight (ankle) is expected to be missing for up to four weeks while Rob Kelly (knee) will remain out of contention until mid-June.

Hawks coach Paul March said: “This is another game where we need three points.

“We’ve worked out that in our squad there are 11 ex-Knights players going back, including eight from last year.

“That will add a bit to it, but we’ve got to play with controlled emotion and concentrate on what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to be professional and try to play to our gameplan.”