Poor start is costly for Knights

York City Knights paid the price for a poor start to their third Northern Rail Cup match, losing 40-28 at Batley.

The Knights conceded five tries in 24 minutes and a hat-trick of tries from skipper Paul Hughes proved insufficient to overcome the deficit.

"We warmed up pretty lackadaisically and I warned the players we'd probably start like that," assistant-coach James Ratcliffe told BBC Radio York.

"We came up with a poor 20 minutes and left ourselves too much to do."

Ratcliffe added: "It's a formidable slope, the wind is far greater than you think (sitting in the stand) and we've lost as a team.

Every time they came near our line they looked like they were going to score, so that will be corrected

James Ratcliffe

"We've not performed very well, but you don't become a bad side in three days so we're not walking about kicking stones or anything yet. It's just been a poor 25 minutes.

"Fortunately we've come back into the game, shown a bit of character and managed to get a bonus point out of it, so it's not all doom and gloom.

"We did highlight Batley as being the toughest game of the group and it proved to be that."

The bonus point keeps the Knights in a strong position in their group, and they still look very likely to qualify for the knock-out stages with a home game coming up against London Skolars next Sunday.

"The defence is a big part of what we're trying to do now at York," Ratcliffe added. "It's something we're going to be working very hard on this week.

"We've had three tries where we looked like the York defence of last season. Everytime they came near our line they looked like they were going to score, so that will be corrected.

"Some people will be disappointed with their displays and we'll have to give them a little cuddle and make sure we're all ready for next Sunday."