Jonathan Schofield and Danny Ratcliffe both scored a hat-trick of tries as York City Knights hit top form with a 72-14 home win over Gateshead.

After briefly trailing 8-6, the Knights scored 11 more tries to go top of the Championship One table.

Knights coach James Ratcliffe told BBC Radio York: "We've gone in the right direction, that's the main thing."

"This is our league to be won," added man-of-the-match Lee Waterman, who converted all 12 tries.

"The last couple of weeks we've not been working as a team.

"This week in training we got back down to basics.

"It's good to get back to winning ways to go to Blackpool on Monday because it'll be a physical game there."

From 1 to 35 in our squad, if you drop below the levels required, you'll get replaced James Ratcliffe

Ratcliffe refused to go overboard at the scale of the victory.

"It's certainly nowhere near where we need to be at if we want to challenge for honours," he said. "But it's a step in the right direction.

"We've actually been complimented by Gateshead coach Chris Hood on our goalline defence.

"We couldn't have defended our name last week never mind our line.

"The most important thing today is that they were given a very, very simple game plan and they stuck to it to the note, all the way through for 80 minutes.

"They stuck to it and they got the result that they deserved."

Ratcliffe made eight changes to the expected line-up following the 40-24 defeat at Doncaster last Sunday. And the dropped and injured players could now face a tough task getting their places back.

"Nobody can be guaranteed a spot," added Ratcliffe. "From 1 to 35 in our squad, if you drop below the levels required, you'll get replaced."

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