After winning 15 straight games to begin their rugby league life, the Toronto Wolfpack showed last week they could lose with class.
"An absolutely incredible game. The @YorkKnightsRLFC team, organization and fans thoroughly deserve their win," Toronto tweeted after its 26-16 upset defeat at York last weekend to open the Super 8s playoff round.
The Wolfpack had beaten the visiting Knights 64–22 on July 1.
There is no panic in the wake of the unexpected setback. With six games to play, Toronto (15-1-0) remains in the driver's seat for promotion out of the Kingstone Press League 1, the third tier of English rugby league.
"If there'd been a lack of commitment from our boys, then I would have had something to worry about," said Wolfpack coach Paul Rowley. "But that's not the case ... I just thought we didn't play as intelligently as we should, as smart as we should."
The Wolfpack, who have outscored their opposition 932-183 this season, look to resume normal service Sunday at Workington Town (8-7-1). Toronto won 58-12 at Workington when the teams met June 18.
The fully professional Wolfpack, forced to enter the league in the third tier, had their way against semi-pro opposition during the regular season. But the stakes are raised in the Super 8s, which feature the top eight teams in the division.
Clubs carry their points forward in the Super 8s with the team atop the table winning promotion to the second-tier Championship. The second- through fifth-ranked teams will play off to see who joins them.
"Like I said before, these 8s are a different animal," said Rowley. "We're going to have to be good. Every one's a Cup final.
"Every performance that everyone puts on against us is their best. They won't play that well again, will York."
Rowley, while having some issues with what went on last weekend, said York deserved the kudos.
"I thought York were very, very good ... That's sport. And you should be humble and respectful in defeat or victory."
York, under new ownership with a lineup bolstered by players on loan from clubs above, demonstrated that before a crowd of 2,602— its largest in eight years.
As rugby's first transatlantic team, Toronto has been under the spotlight all season. A "moneybags team" is how the Press newspaper in York described the Canadian entry.
"We already understand people talk us up, how good we are, (that) we've got this, that and the other, " said Rowley. "I think York had more Super League players in their squad than we did in ours.
"Everybody likes to go under the radar and put us on a pedestal to apply pressure. Because obviously everybody wants us to fail. So we've got to (shoulder) that pressure and deal with it."
Rowley has not been happy with some of the officiating he's witnessed. In his view, the Wolfpack had perfectly good tries by Jonny Pownall and Craig Hall called off on the weekend while a York try was allowed despite a clear knock-on.
"Horrendous decisions," said Rowley, who has become used to being on the wrong end of the penalty count.
As a consequence, Ryan Brierley was sin-binned for dissent. Rowley also was baffled about why Jack Bussey was sin-binned in the second half.
"We can't fix refs, we have to fix ourselves and worry about how we get ourselves better," he concluded.
Third-place Barrow did Toronto a favour last weekend by beating second-place Whitehaven 15-2, not that Rowley cares much.
"We just worry about what we're doing," he said.
The Wolfpack hold a three-point lead atop the table.
While Toronto has a quality squad, it is relatively small and there have been injury problems of late. Rowley is currently missing Ryan Bailey, Andrew Dixon and Sean Penkywicz.
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Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press
