York City Knights' lack of discipline proved costly in their 40-18 defeat at Gateshead Thunder on Sunday according to assistant coach James Ratcliffe.

Five of Gateshead's eight tries came after penalties against York.

"We know what we're capable of and we've come up far short of what we're looking for," he told BBC Radio York.

"Three penalties for dissent while we've got the ball in possession, one from the player coach, is just not an example we want to set."

"I thought we played really poorly. I set the guys a challenge this week to come up to Gateshead and win the game and at some points I thought we could go on and do that.

Now we need to go on and get three results and it puts us right back in the mix again. James Ratcliffe

"Even at half-time when we were eight points down I thought we'd offered them all the points rather than them taking them off us. But the second half was totally different."

The Knights will be hoping their injury situation improves after having only 17 fit players available for the match at Gateshead.

Despite the defeat Ratcliffe said the play-offs are still their aim and as a result next week's game against Blackpool is important.

"The play-offs are still our goal. It's the first time we've put three defeats together. Now we need to go on and get three results and it puts us right back in the mix again.

"It's a massive game. They're a team that are quite dangerous and it's not going to be an easy fixture."