19 man squad announced:

Bustin, Crossley, Garside, Gibson, Grant, Halafihi, Hallas, Hodgson, Johnson, Keyes, Kirk, McNally, Milton, Minchella, Peltier, Pickersgill, Ryan, Smith, Wood.

Who misses out? Halafihi and Bustin probably (the latter due to lack of game time).

McNally
Grant
Smith
Gibson
Ryan
Pickersgill
Keyes
Kirk
Hallas
Crossley
Garside
Johnson
Minchella

Hodgson
Wood
Peltier
Milton

That means Hallas will have to do 80 at hooker. And as you say Bustin and Halafihi misses out. Would have had Butterworth in the squad instead.

Third stand now open for York. Great marketing from them too. I know they've worked really hard to advertise this game. Looks like they will be deservedly rewarded with a cracking crowd!

really looking forward to this season ... hopefully can get back to blighty for the business end of the year, good luck to all the players and of course us fans, home and abroad

Good to have a full team to select from, - Chisholm.
However young Pickersgill has shown up well so probably deserves a start alongside Keyes.

Having Minichella available will take some of the heat away from halfbacks too.

Yes, cracking effort all round, I've never seen the 3rd stand open before! Here's the article: https://yorkcityknights.com/club/knight ... -crescent/ According to wikipedia, the record crowd for York City Knights is 3,509 in a friendly against Leeds Rhinos at Bootham Crescent, here's hoping we can beat that.

Yes, cracking effort all round, I've never seen the 3rd stand open before! Here's the article: https://yorkcityknights.com/club/knight ... -crescent/ According to wikipedia, the record crowd for York City Knights is 3,509 in a friendly against Leeds Rhinos at Bootham Crescent, here's hoping we can beat that.

I'm surprised Butterworth isn't in the squad, he's a better hooker than both Hallas and Halafihi imo.

Interesting on "3 bulls in a bar" video, Chissy mentioned Moss playing for York on Sunday...

If he is, he's being added after the squad announcement. They have only named 17 players though.

You can pay on the gate tomorrow, just to be clear!

Kieron Moss has signed on a months loan for York

Good result against one of better teams we’ll come up against. Showed some composure to grind out win and not panic at end. Didn’t think Keyes had boot on him for last penalty but he made it look easy.

It was okay. York showed spirit, and were unlucky to lose, whereas (despite 5 pre-season friendlies) we looked cathartic and unimaginative. Still, it's better to grind it out and win on the last kick off the game than to play well and lose.
And those pubs in York are ace.

(Edit: drunken phone spellings)

Well we've played our get out of jail already. To be fair i think this will be one of the toughest games we'll play all year. I thought the best team lost IMO. Probably didn't deserve to win. But hey, how many times have we been on the receiving end of those last minute defeats. We'll be better for it after today with our best player still to return. We''ve won away from home against a promotion rival so we should be happy.

I just want to give a special mention to York. I genuinely can't praise them enough for what they have done for this game. The marketing has been superb. Yes we took a big following, but it wasn't 4k Bulls fans there, they were plenty from other SL clubs, and i even talked to a few York City FC fans who were at their first RL game. I'm sure they'll be back depsite the result. Everything was well organised too when we got to the ground. I almost felt bad we nicked it so cruelly from them at the end i had such a good day! I wish them all the luck for the rest of the year.

Great result against what will be one of our main rivals for promotion. Watched it online on the way to work and linked it to the van speakers. Was almost like being there haha! Fantastic support and I was gutted I missed it

Didn’t think we played too bad. Need to show more going forward as we do look clueless at times. Thought Keyes was good today. Line speed for me is an issue. Hate it when the opposition gain easy yards from poor defensive line speed. However a win is a win and it was nail biting and intense! A champion team wins close games even if playing poor.

Massive shoutout to York for the promotion of this game. A lot of clubs including ourselves could take note if this! Fantastic that we helped York break the record home attendance too!

Exciting game.Our defence needs tightening,we got away with it yesterday.Overall a good effort and it was a good advert for the division.Keyes kicked well under great pressure.

One aspect that's probably worth noting, after all the pre-season talk about how matches would be a grub-fest, with inexperienced refs failing to protect the players - the ref actually did a really decent job of keeping the game flowing.

There were surprisingly few penalties for such a high intensity game, and very little rough stuff. Both teams deserve credit for that as well, but I though the referee had a very good game as well.

The fact that he had the bottle to award a penalty for offside in the 83rd minute was obviously a bonus

Agreed the ref had a good game but clearly was helped by the attitude of both teams who both clearly came to play rugby. He missed the odd situation but all in all one of the better performances by an official. The Bulls never say die attitude was for me summed up in the last minute when Sam Hallas(I think) made tremendous yards to block a drop goal attempt which had it been successful would have won the game for York. Instead the ball went upfield and the rest is history.COYB

My main thought is that we didn't play all that well but won the points, which is, if we are to believe the clichés the sign of a good team. York, coulda shoulda woulda but didn't.

York's offloading game caused us no end of problems, whilst our more conservative playbook, meant we often struggled to make ground on our sets. I guess we knew JK was a 'steady as she goes' coach but sometimes it's necessary to play a bit more 'off the cuff, imo'. Whilst we struggled to stop York moving forward they, safe in them knowldege that we were unlikely to make any fancy off-loads, were free to let their defenders get set in the line defence without worrying. I guess there is a happy medium and York seemed nearer to it than us, to be honest.

I'd like to Moss's touchdown again. Putting the ball down was the last thing he did and his legs were already down nearer the touchline than the ball, against that I thought York were a bit unlucky with the knock on over the line, certainly from my view I'd have given that, though the ref was looking from almost directly opposite and came up with a different view. It's a game of verty small margins at times. Oh, and Joe Keyes was superb, can't wait tom see him and Chissy together.

I thought the Moss try and the disallowed York try in the first half were both marginal and could’ve gone either way. The one in the second half was 100m away and I haven’t a clue whether it was a try or not. I think York were a bit unlucky and a draw might have been a fairer reflection of the game but it’s been so long since we had a bit of luck I think we’re due a break.

I agree that the York offloads were a problem but our goal line defence was great especially in the run up to halftime when they threw the kitchen sink at us. The highlights for me were Keyes nerveless kicking, the break he made to set up Minchella and the Hallas charge-down. Crossley led the pack very well and I was impressed with Garside’s ability to catch some very tricky drop outs and kick offs.

Going forward I think we can be a lot more slick with our ball movement and it’d be nice to see us try the odd offload too. Chisholm coming back soon should help.

It was great to see the reaction after the win yesterday but that was just game one. There are a lot of tough games ahead against some teams that will try anything to put us off our game. York played the game hard but fair and will be gunning for us in the return. The likes of Doncaster, Keighley, Hunslet and the Cumbrian sides will be very tough.

Altogether a good result, I don't think we will have a stronger test this year away from home. Okay there were things to put right and most of them have been outlined here. But lets not forget this is very much a new team, once again without our number one half back pairing. Someone mentioned playing off the cuff, well, our off the cuff man is still not out there.

My major concern is that our pack still looks like it can be outmuscled. The little barrel shaped prop ran harder and caused more trouble than any of our forwards (Crossley apart) I think he did at least three stints, and was a handful everytime.

Just glad we got the points as I went more in hope than expectation.

As mentioned lack of line speed and offloads caused us the most problems. Personally thought we were under the kosh for 50 mins of the game. Our brightest spells came with the introduction of Pickersgill, Pelts and Vila Halafihi, around 15 mins each side of half time.

Gibson also had a good game. Be good to get Oakes back too because he's a real wingers centre.

What an entertaining afternoon that was. Did the better team lose?
Really enjoyed it and of course winning like that made it better.

I would say yes.