Knights homing in on Crescent

Richard Agar's men secured their passage with a hard-fought 32-24 win at Sheffield yesterday to become the only National League Two outfit in the last 16.

There are nine Super League clubs with them in the hat, and should the Knights draw a money-spinning home tie against one of the big boys, they would want to switch the game from Huntington Stadium to maximise the crowd potential.

The tie would be played on Sunday, March 14 - the day after City's home game with Torquay.

Knights majority shareholder John Guildford said: "If we get a St Helens or a Leeds or a Hull at home, to limit the attendance to 3,500 (Huntington Stadium's capacity) would not be good.

"We would rely on the goodwill of York City to allow us to play there."

The Knights are hopeful City would not object to a request to play the tie at the 9,500 ground, which has hosted only one rugby league match before, a Challenge Cup tie between York and Leeds in January 1989, which drew 11,347. If City turned them down, the Knights would probably play the game outside of the Minster City.

Coach Richard Agar declared he would take whatever team they're given - but expressed a preference for a healthy pay-day.

"At this stage it would be nice to get a home draw against a Super League club," he said. "I'd like to get us a decent crowd where the boys can go and enjoy themselves.

"Realistically we should not be beating any Super League teams. That's by no means a defeatist attitude, it's realistic - although every now and again a shock happens.

"You don't want a Super League club to beat us up and spit us out - that would do us no good whatsoever - but if we could put on a good show and get a good crowd, that would be good. And on a certain day anything can happen."

Agar admitted yesterday's display at Don Valley Stadium wasn't pretty - but winning through was the important thing.

"We definitely won't beat a Super League club if we play like we did yesterday," he joked.

"I thought it was probably our worst performance of the season. I thought we were ill-disciplined - I'm not only talking about playing within the rules but about discipline when it comes to sticking to the task and to what we've trained to do.

"We also made some uncharacteristic, sloppy errors. We scored some great tries but I thought Sheffield were better than us in a few aspects and we might consider ourselves fortunate to get that result.

"Still, if we can play badly and win every week we will take that. We hung on in there and just about did enough."

He added: "I would rather not concede as many points but at the end of the day we scored 32 away from home - and while you're doing that you're always in with a chance."

Referee Gareth Hewer came in for stick, especially from home fans for dishing out four yellow cards to the hosts and only two to York - one right at the death - but neither Agar nor Eagles player-coach Mark Aston added criticism.

Agar said: "There was an awful lot of penalties but I'd like to look at the tape before commenting. You might find he was right every time.

"The cards are going to play a part because they mean guys have to work harder - but I don't think we took advantage for those periods because we hardly had the ball."

Aston concurred: "The refereeing decisions have got to be looked at before I comment on them.

"Maybe the ref should have been a bit more experienced but I'm not blaming him. He made what he thought were the right decisions."

He added: "I thought it was a passionate game. We were down to our last 17 fit players and they gave 110 per cent."

Knights' Chris Smith is optimistic of returning to action within a fortnight - dispelling fears he had suffered a bad injury.

The 28-year-old scored after 88 seconds yesterday but injured a knee in the process and played no further part in the game. He has only just returned from an eight-month injury lay-off, having suffered knee ligament damage.

Updated: 11:11 Monday, March 01, 2004