It's not been a good week for Lions.

The British rugby union squad were whitewashed 3-0 in New Zealand in an embarrassing Test performance, while several thousand miles away, their Swinton namesakes had their roar reduced to a whimper by the York City Knights in a 16-32 home defeat.

It leaves the Lancashire hosts needing nothing short of a miracle to get a sniff of automatic promotion while the Knights remain on top of the jostling pack.

Swinton, missing Ian Watson but bolstered by St Helens academy man Phil Anderton and Mick Coates is no slouch either, showed flashes of the team they can and many expected they would be.

Their Lee Patterson - as opposed to Knights' Lee Paterson - showed some frightening pace to break through the Knights line only for referee Colin Morris to call play back for an infringement. And their kicking game, especially in the first half with the slight gradient on their side, created wave after wave of chances for Matt Blaymire to deal with at full back in the energy-sapping heat.

But once again this was about the Knights - their resilience, their fitness and their gritty determination to see this season through.

At one point it looked like they might fall down on their inability to kill the ball in the tackle with Swinton enjoying more than their share of get-out-of-the-tackle free-cards in the early exchanges.

As early as the fourth minute, Danny Heaton offloaded to stand-off Mick Coates and his kick was chased up by Chris Maye to ground in the rugby union-sized end zone - 4-0.

David Bates came on off the bench but limped off again five minutes later and replacement Craig Forsyth quickly did his part to complete the tackles, throwing himself into virtually every hit for the rest of the half.

Paul Thorman made good ground despite the first of a string of Lions high-shots that eventually earned the Knights a penalty on the Lions 20.

Moments later, Yusuf Sozi - who later burst through four men only for the resulting try by Fox to be reneged - combined with Chris Levy and Blaymire spun over for his first of the day, Thorman adding the extras to put the Knights in front.

Lee Marsh sold a dummy to the Knights backs on 24 minutes and easily twisted through to put the home side back in the lead.

But the indomitable anything-you-can-do attitude of the Knights fought back. Rhodes was left lying prone by a high-shot that should have warranted at least a yellow card.

The Knights, fuelled by the extra motivation, drove forward and Jim Elston made a darting run from acting-half for the line. He was held up but Blaymire picked up where he left off and scrambled over from the play-the-ball with a crucial score seconds before half-time.

Elston - again - arced through an enticing gap on 46 minutes to open up a bit of breathing space, which was stretched to 10-20 after a Thorman penalty for another high-tackle on Rhodes.

A deft shimmy from Elston on the Knights' 40-yard line outwitted the Lions and he raced clear with one man to beat and options on either side in Peter Fox and Dan Potter. The pass went outside to Potter with acres of space to the try-line but it also went agonisingly forward.

Wayne English ran in a 70-metre sprint down the right wing to close the gap, but then the Fox-Potter partnership combined to quickly reinstate the ten-point gap.

Potter scrambled up a neat Rhodes grubber ten metres out and fired the ball out to Fox on the overlap.

With the score at 16-28, Thorman having added another penalty, the game was well beyond the tamed Lions when Chris Ross got the ball over the line with four minutes to go despite a clear knock-on in the build-up.

Knights: Blaymire 8, Ross 7, Potter 8, Callaghan 7, Fox 8, Rhodes 8, P Thorman 7, Sozi 8, Levy 7, Sullivan 7, Smith 8, Kirke 8, Paterson 8. Subs (all used): Elston 8, Liddell 7, Bates 6, Forysth 8.

Tries: Blaymire 10, 39, Elston 46, Fox 66, Ross 76.

Conversions: P Thorman 10, 39, 46, 66, 76. Penalties: P Thorman 61. Drop goals: None.

Sin-binned: None.

Sent off: None.

Swinton Lions: English, Oldham, Patterson, Maye, Irwin, Coates, Anderton, Heaton, Joseph, Rogers, Leigh, Sinfield, Marsh. Subs (all used): Ayres, Russell, Southern, Whittaker.

Tries: Maye 4, Marsh 24, English 52. Conversions: Marsh 24, 52. Penalties: None. Drop goals: None. Sin-binned: None. Sent off: None.

Man of the match: Matt Blaymire - Had a lot of kicks to soak up in the first half and added two tries in a solid all-round performance.

Referee: Colin Morris (Wakefield).

Rating: Missed a knock-on in the latter stages (not that York fans minded as it gave them another try to cheer) and had one or two other shaky moments.

Penalty count: 2-9.

HT: 10-12.

Gamebreaker: Blaymire scrambled over from acting half minutes after Swinton had got their noses in front and seconds before half-time to take the wind out of the Lions' sails.

Attendance: 802.

Weather watch: Scorchio. Temperature in the high 20s with precious little wind made life very difficult for the players and officials.

Match rating: High intensity to match the high stakes. At times gritty but the best team on the day won.

Updated: 09:16 Tuesday, July 12, 2005