A poor second-half performance saw York City Knights lose top spot in Championship 1 with a 27-14 defeat at Blackpool Panthers.

The Knights led 6-4 at the break but a hat-trick of tries from Dave Llewellyn helped the home side to victory.

Knights coach James Ratcliffe told BBC Radio York: "It was just a really disappointing second-half showing.

"Unfortunately they decided they didn't want to carry on doing what we'd been doing in the first half."

He added: "We highlighted a few areas where we thought we could improve on to capitalise on what Blackpool were doing wrong."

Joe McLocklan scored a late try for the Knights but a missed conversion from Lee Waterman meant that a late field goal from Blackpool's Johnny Leather denied the Knights a bonus point.

York are without a game next weekend and next play on Sunday, 18 April in against Crusaders in the fourth round of the Challenge Cup.

Ratcliffe added: "It's been a hectic weekend. The players are back in on Thursday and it all starts over again in our build up to the Crusaders.

"They know they've got some hard work to do. Nothing changes and we'll keep working hard to try and get where we want to be."

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