Kingstone Press League 1 Preview: Oxford v York City Knights
Tim Rumford, the Oxford coach, is far from happy with his side’s recent performances.
“I’m bitterly disappointed,” he said. “It’s not a reflection on the way we’ve prepared, our players simply haven’t approached the game with the correct attitude.
“The honeymoon period is over, we’ll be looking to bring in some players. But it happens at this level, we’re not going to cast anyone aside but it’s important we realise as a club and as individuals where we are. Having a wake-up call early on certainly won’t do us any harm.
“The game against York is going to be really tough, but it’s a great challenge. It’s our first home game of the season and there’s lots of interest around the game locally and we need to step up. We need to starting rising to these challenges.
“Hopefully we’ll have two or three new faces in for the weekend and hopefully that will make us competitive.
“If we can be competitive in the closing stages of the game then it will give us a chance of taking the points – that’s what we’re looking for.”
Despite last week’s defeat by Keighley, York City Knights, coach James Ford says his team can take a lot of positives out of the performance.
“Given the amount of possession they had I was pretty impressed with our defensive stuff and I thought we showed a lot of character to be in the game,” he said.
“Obviously there are one or two areas we want to improve on but we knew that coming into the season. We’ve got a young squad and it was never going to be about game one for us it’s about game 21 and beyond that.
“The only way these players are going to get experience and improve is by playing, making mistakes and having the opportunity to learn from it.
“Oxford is an opportunity for us to take a step forward. I imagine there will be quite a lot of passion in the game. We’ll be working on one or two things that didn’t help us too much against Keighley and I’ll be hoping the players take another step forward.”
Loose forward Colton Roche and wing Jamel Chisholm are likely to miss the game through injury but Harry Carter and Ryan Mallinder should both be available for selection.