COACH Richard Agar is adamant his York City Knights side can quickly turn their form around and get back on the promotion trail.

Agar admitted confidence might have taken a knock during his team's four-game losing streak, but said the mood in the camp remained good ahead of Sunday's make or break clash with table-toppers Barrow Raiders.

The Knights are likely to go into the game without skipper Lee Jackson, who suffered a bad dead leg during Friday night's defeat at Sheffield Eagles, though fellow hooker Jim Elston has reported no problems after coming back from an eight-week injury lay-off on Friday and is a natural replacement.

"We're not downbeat but we have had some bad results," Agar told the Evening Press.

"I was angry on Friday because of our lack of respect for the ball, but we showed some fight in the second half. There were three or four pretty bad individual performances but there was a lot of effort there.

"We questioned the effort in the previous two performances, but while the effort is there if we can take that same attitude and smarten ourselves up with the football I still think we will be there or thereabouts."

All the defeats in this current slump have been away from home, and the Knights will be hoping the comforts of home will signal an upturn in what is arguably the biggest of their Huntington Stadium fixtures this year.

Agar's men lie six points behind LHF Healthplan National League Two leaders Barrow, and a defeat on Sunday would all but end their hopes of snatching the sole automatic promotion place.

Agar said: "I'm sure the players can pick themselves up. There is still a lot of time to go in the season and there is still an awful lot to play for.

"The players have proved they can do it. Their ability is not in question. Confidence has possibly taken a bit of a knock, which is normal, but it will only take one win to put that right."

Jackson was taken to hospital in Sheffield as a precaution on Friday evening as there were fears he might have suffered a blood clot. As reported in later editions on Saturday's Evening Press, those fears proved unfounded but the 35-year-old is nevertheless likely to sit out this weekend.

Agar said: "There was a lot of swelling early doors and there was a worry about bleeding inside the leg but thankfully it's not too serious. But he's struggling for this weekend."

Richard Wilson also suffered a dead leg, while Simon Friend (shoulder) and Carl Stannard (concussion) also took knocks, but all three, plus Aaron Wood (shoulder) who sat out Friday's match, might be available this weekend.

Agar added: "Lee's been one of our stand-out players all year and we will miss him if he doesn't play. We'll miss his experience and leadership, but having said that we could not really ask for a better replacement than Jim Elston."

Updated: 11:00 Wednesday, July 28, 2004