KEIGHLEY Cougars boss Craig Lingard was not altogether surprised to see Toronto Wolfpack’s unbeaten run ended by York City Knights last weekend.

Lingard’s side welcome the Knights this Sunday, looking to close the gap on the play-offs again after cutting it to three points with a win over Doncaster.

But he is not reading too much into the 26-16 upset caused by the Cougars’ visitors.

“I said I’d have liked to have played Toronto first up,” Lingard admitted.

“They’ve been playing teams over in Toronto, and they maybe haven’t taken their full strength teams over there, so you might have caught them under-cooked.

“Whether Toronto have been under-cooked or whether York have been absolutely brilliant, or a little bit of both, I’d have really liked to have got Toronto first up and tried to turn them over.”

The quality in the Super 8s, and a huge victory for his side at Doncaster, means Lingard (pictured) sees no reason why the Cougars can’t burst York’s bubble after their headline-grabbing success.

“Everybody can beat everybody in this top eight, because everybody’s in the top eight so they are quality teams,” he said.

“Toronto have been beaten, Doncaster have been beaten, everybody is taking points off everybody.”

He continued: “We were five points behind Doncaster at the start of the game. If Doncaster get the victory, they’re seven points in front of us and it’s virtually impossible to get those points back.

“We identified that this first game was really important to claw some positioning back and get in that top five.

“We’ve just got to focus on what we’re doing ourselves and that’s getting the two points every week and then see what happens with the results around us.”

Keighley welcome the Knights hoping for not only a win, but for Barrow to defeat Doncaster and allow the Cougars to close the gap to the top five to just one point.

But York will certainly be up for Sunday’s game after a fierce affair when the two last clashed.

“I’ve got no grudges over at York. I’ll just make sure that my calendar is clear for the following Tuesday for the disciplinary because no doubt certain people will be up for review,” said Lingard with a tongue-in-cheek reference to York coach James Ford’s citing of several Keighley players following their June encounter.

“If we get another two points, and Barrow do us a favour, we’ll have everyone looking over their shoulders.”