Knights come close to Northern Rail Cup upset at Barrow

York City Knights ran Championship title hopefuls Barrow close before losing 24-20 in their opening Northern Rail Cup game at Craven Park.

Tries from Danny Wilson, Ryan Esders, Dave Sutton and Jonny Presley earned the Knights a bonus point in defeat.

Knights coach Dave Woods told BBC Radio York: "It's mixed emotions really, because we gifted them that win.

"We've been beaten by a couple of points by a side that's probably going to finish in the top two."

Woods continued: "It's not good enough. We can't come here and turn over balls like we did and (give away) stupid penalties.

"On the one hand we can take some things out of it, on the other we're really disappointed in what we did.

"We're not going anywhere to lose, we want to win everything we can and we'll put in our best effort every time we get out on to the park, but some of the mistakes we made were just not acceptable.

"But we can take heart from the fact we looked really fit against them.

"At half time we jogged off and they (Barrow) were walking off. All the forwards got a good spell, fitness-wise there's not a problem but we need to make sure we do the little things right."