York City Knights assistant coach James Ratcliffe praised his players for keeping their discipline against "a very ill-disciplined Hunslet side".

Sunday's 34-6 win lifted them into fifth in League Two above Doncaster, who they play on Friday.

And Ratcliffe admitted: "We'll take an ugly win, won't we, rather than a nice-looking loss.

"We had to shorten our game and played with less depth than usual. That's why we've not scored so many points."

Ratcliffe, whose team had racked up 224 points in their previous four matches, was pleased at how his players reacted to a comfortable scoreline over League Two's bottom side.

Doncaster are going to be up for it because we're both fighting for fifth place James Ratcliffe

"The good thing is they're not happy with what they've done," said Ratcliffe. "It's a good state to be in when you've let in one try and you're scoring 34 points."

Ratcliffe let fly at what he felt were some rough tactics from Hunslet, even by Rugby League standards.

"Shocking," he admitted. "To the extent that you start fearing for players' safety at some parts of the game. High tackles everywhere, off-the-ball incidents going on, late tackles."

The Knights are now preparing for Friday's trip to Doncaster, who beat London Skolars by the narrow margin of 23-16.

"Doncaster are going to be up for it," said Ratcliffe, "because we're both fighting for fifth place.

"We've already started preparing, we've got the videos of Doncaster's last two games.

"We'll be doing our homework and the players will come with the proper attitude to try and take them on and get the three points down at Keepmoat."