NEW York City Knights coach Mick Cook said he picked his team on merit yesterday - but warned not to read too much into it.

Cook's starting line-up for the 38-24 friendly defeat of Leeds at Bootham Crescent included six new signings, while Jim Elston opened at hooker with last year's captain, Lee Jackson, one of nine playing substitutes.

He admitted his team selection had been based on performances in training, but suggested his side for the first competitive game of the season, at Castleford in the Northern Rail Cup next month, was far from decided.

"The starting 13 was picked on merit from training but they need to impress in games on a weekly basis," he told the Evening Press.

"A lot of players stood up and put in some solid displays. It's down to the coaching staff and myself now to select a team - and I envisage that being a real headache if the players keep responding as they are.

"Players need to be good right through these days. You can't just be good on game-days, you need to be good in training as well, sending out the right signals."

It was a memorable first game in charge of the Knights for Cook against a Rhinos side which included ten first-team squad members and two who starred in the Super League Grand Final triumph last season.

He added: "All in all I was pretty happy with the way things went. Ten of their players are in Leeds' 28-man squad - it was not just a bunch of kids, a lot had Super League experience and the others are real quality players.

"In the second half they had a young side, but even in the first half we created a lot of opportunities only for the odd pass to stop us building pressure or getting a score, while a few little things got Leeds down our end and they scored a few tries."

Two stars of the show were hat-trick winger Peter Fox and scrum-half Chris Levy.

Cook - who also gave a run-out to trialist Stuart Kain, nephew of coach John Kain - said: "I was impressed with all of them. They played well as a team. Peter Fox had a great game and I was really happy with Chris Levy's debut. But you could go through the whole team and find a lot of positives.

"Chris has trained really hard since he got here after his holiday. He's really knuckled down and it showed yesterday that he's going to be a good prospect."

Cook insisted there were still things to work on: "Well, we conceded a few tries for a start. There are a few little things, some of our core skills could probably improve - as could anybody's - and there are a few bits and bats defensively, but we're going in the right direction.

"I was very happy with the first hit-out. To say the squad has dramatically changed, there are a lot of new players in there, but even when we were throwing players in and out they all slotted in there well."

Updated: 11:02 Tuesday, January 04, 2005