Dons head coach issues apology after 'unacceptable' defeat at York Knights

“It was a totally unacceptable performance and one that I didn’t see coming after beating (second-placed) Toulouse in our last game,” he told the Free Press. “But if you are not on your game these things can happen in the Championship. York themselves had 50 points put past them in their opening game at (promoted) Oldham.”

He added:“I had been looking forward to the game and their coach said he was too. We both thought that it would be a really good physical battle. So it was disappointing that we didn’t perform on the day and I’d like to apologise to the fans who gave us great backing throughout the game.

“It was one of those performances where it is difficult to put your finger on what went wrong. Training on Friday night wasn’t brilliant but it wasn’t that bad either and there was no indication of what might happen today.

“Having the following week off after the win over Toulouse didn’t help because you lose some of that momentum, but we kept the sessions intense enough to have the players’ bodies ready for contact and collision.

“We picked up a couple of injuries in that game which disrupted us a bit and we had to make changes. The situation wasn’t helped when Isaac Misky suffered a quad injury in training on Friday.

“We brought in a couple of boys in from Hull as part of our dual-reg deal - 19 year-old Willie Wilson and Hugo Salabio - and I still felt that we had a decent side out there and our starting 13 was very strong and we had quality on the bench.”

Horne conceded that the home side, who started the game one place below the Dons, played well.

“They are a quality team and I knew that they had some key players back for the game,” he said. “They’ve got some strong-running forwards, Liam Harris is in great form and they’ve got a good kicking game.

“Having said that we didn’t apply ourselves and if you don’t do that - whatever your tactics - you don’t give yourselves a chance.

“I’m not saying that everyone had a bad game. But our effort areas were in the wrong areas of the field and instead of being pro-active we were reactive. Instead of being dominant in the first-up contact we were constantly on the back foot.”