YORK City Knights coach Richard Agar said his players were absolutely forlorn after they threw away the chance of promotion in a dramatic and ultimately heartbreaking play-off final.

The Knights had turned around a 16-6 deficit to lead 30-16 with ten minutes left, but a controversial try awarded by the video referee sent Halifax on a scoring spree of three tries in six minutes to snatch an unlikely victory at the death.

Fax thus secured their LHF Healthplan National League One status and left York facing another season in NL2, and Agar admitted his side threw it away.

"I can't honestly think it gets much worse than this," he said. "Maybe a drop goal with one second on the clock, but to let a 14-point slip.

"I thought we were the better side on the day. We had a poor start and a very poor finish but we've lost it, they've not won it. They played to the final whistle and if we had done that we would have won the game."

He added: "It's very quiet in the dressing room. There's nothing I can say to lift them. They will mull it over and unfortunately it's the off-season now and they've got a long time to mull it over."

When asked if he could believe what happened, he replied: "I've seen it once before - away at Chorley last month when we let a 16-point lead slip - so I can believe it. But in a final I thought we might be smart enough to carry it through.

"We've not just shot ourselves in the foot, we've jumped head first off Harbour Bridge."

As for the controversial try -- video ref Steve Cross ruled Halifax's Alan Hadcroft had grounded the ball when many people in the stadium thought he had been held up - Agar said: "It must have been an extra long blade of grass.

"I think from the Halifax players' reaction I don't think even Alan Hadcroft thought for one minute he had the ball down.

"But even so we were eight points up with eight minutes left and we should have closed the game.

"We've come up with a couple of mystifying decisions with the ball in hand and we've not paid enough attention to the ball in the last ten minutes.

"We've held our breaths and waited for the final whistle."

It was Agar's last game in charge before he moves to Hull FC, and he admitted he thought the season-long goal of promotion was virtually in the bag.

"I absolutely did think we had won it," he said. "I thought everybody, including both sets of players - I dare say the Halifax players - thought we had won it as well.

"It (the controversial try) gave them a boost but we still should have won the game. We've managed to spill the ball on the first tackle moments later and I thought that was a crucial moment (as Halifax scored again soon after)."

Updated: 09:52 Monday, October 11, 2004