York City Knights beat Blackpool 22-20 to open their account in Championship One but director of rugby James Ratcliffe was far from impressed.

"It was a bit like pulling teeth to be honest," Radcliffe told BBC Radio York, "it wasn't a really good performance but a win's a win."

Gareth Langley missed a last-minute conversion that would have given Blackpool a share of the points.

"We'll take a scrappy win as well as a fantastic loss," Ratcliffe added.

The Knights suffered a heavy penalty count in last week's defeat at Dewsbury and Ratcliffe believes that has not helped matters.

"The manner of the penalties we gave away last week has taken a lot out of our game," he added, "I think we were fantastically squeaky clean today, probably too clean.

"That's taken a little bit away from what we're about."

Blackpool were not highly-fancied at the start of the season but Ratcliffe thinks they are a better side than many people think.

"They're going to be a decent side are Blackpool this year, they're not a bad side, but it's what we do that we're concerned about."

Adam Sullivan was man of the match and Ratcliffe said: "Adam was fantastic, we found yardage easy to come by, I thought all the forwards went all right.

We're not kicking the cat yet but we need to be better James Ratcliffe

"It was our finishing at the business end of the park that let us down.

"The options we took at the far end from the experienced ball players left a lot to be desired.

"We've got a big game in front of us next week (at Warrington in the Challenge Cup), we just need to bounce back and just start playing with a bit of confidence.

"It's not all doom and gloom, we're not kicking the cat yet but we need to be better."

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