IN-FORM York City Knights have to put their promotion push on hold this weekend, but ace Mark Cain says they will benefit from the break.

Cain played a key role - and finally broke his season's scoring duck - at Barrow on Sunday as the Knights fought back in style to win 30-16 away to previously unbeaten Barrow in LHF Healthplan National League Two.

And although this weekend's break in action due to the rugby league showpiece, the Powergen Challenge Cup final, could stutter the Knights' good form, the 28-year-old reckons it is a well-earned rest to recharge the batteries.

"We're looking forward to the weekend off," he told the Evening Press.

"It's the first one since before Christmas due to our run in the cup competitions and it should do us good."

Cain, who finished just one try off top spot in last season's scoring charts at Huntington Stadium, finally got his first touchdown this term in what was his 14th appearance, half of which, however, have been as substitute.

"It's been a long time coming," he admitted. "It was good to get on the pitch a little bit before half-time and it was nice to score.

"I'm hoping to get more game-time. Everyone wants to play as long as possible but we've got a good squad and so you've got to knuckle down and get on with it and hopefully show what you can do when you're on the field."

As for the victory, which ended high-flying Raiders' seven-game unbeaten run, he said: "Barrow is always a tough place to get a result. They've had a good start to the season and played some tough sides in the Arriva Trains Cup so we knew they would be battle-hardened.

"But we travelled up on Saturday and left no stone unturned, getting the maximum preparation and it all paid off.

"We turned it round really well (from 16-0 down), ground our way back into the game and started cutting out the one-on-one misses more than anything. Our speed off the line and one-on-one tackles were a bit lax but we improved.

"There was a big defensive effort. We know we can defend but sometimes we let ourselves down, but if we can restrict teams to a certain number of points we know we've got a good chance because we've got many players who can score tries and win games."

The Knights' next task is at home to bottom club Gateshead on Sunday, May 23. The corresponding fixture last season saw Thunder pull off a shock 29-12 win but the Knights hammered the Tynesiders in the return fixture and have enjoyed two high-scoring wins in the Arriva Trains Cup group matches between the sides this term, 56-24 and 54-26.

And Cain reckons they can do even better. "We let ourselves down against Gateshead in previous games," he said.

"They've got talented half-backs and they opened us up too easily when we played them but we weren't properly switched on and we will want to do better."

Updated: 10:56 Thursday, May 13, 2004