York City Knights made it a hat-trick of wins this season over London Skolars as they won 44-12 at Twickenham Stoop.

The Knights ran up 20 points in the opening 20 minutes to put themselves in command and they stayed on top.

"The first 20, 25 minutes were really good, really professional," coach James Ratcliffe told BBC Radio York.

"Then it became a bit too easy for us at times and we went away from the game plan slightly, but London stuck at it right until the very end."

He added: "If we'd have carried on doing the things we'd worked on during the week, to get at London, I think we'd have carried on ticking over the scoreboard through to the second half.

"Likewise in the second half we didn't score until we went back to the areas we wanted to get to, and once we did that we scored points.

"It doesn't matter how you win them, as they say, it's three points."

York dominated from the start, with Lee Waterman, Dennis Tuffour and Jack Lee all scoring tries before Ade Adebisi opened the Skolars' account.

Tuffour added his second to give the Knights a 20-6 half-time lead, before they pulled further clear through Lee and Danny Ratcliffe.

Paul Thorman replied for the hosts only for Dan Wilson and Danny Ratcliffe to add the gloss for York with two more scores.

James Ratcliffe had some complimentary things to say about the Skolars despite their early capitulation.

I still feel the squad is good enough to do something in the play-offs if they all apply themselves York coach James Ratcliffe

"I've just spoken to their coaching staff and told them I think they will win some games before the end of the season," he said.

"We put a lot of effort in, we prepared well. It's not an easy journey but the lads have been fantastic.

"Hopefully we can push on from here, we've got a week off next week.

"Hopefully we can get a couple more [injured] bodies back on the field the week after up at Gateshead and carry on for the push for the play-offs."

Ratcliffe is still open minded on adding one or two players, although he says it is not essential.

"I still feel the squad is good enough to do something in the play-offs if they all apply themselves," he added.

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