NEW signing Rob Spicer has declared his happiness with life at York City Knights and reckons the team are developing well ahead of life in National League One.

The 21-year-old made his first start for the Knights last night as they lost to his old Wakefield team-mates 26-12 in a pre-season friendly at Huntington Stadium.

Spicer made the step down from Super League in November and, while he admitted he needed time to get used to the part-time arena, he was now settled into the routine.

"There's a difference from being full-time with the fact you've got a job and the amount of time you've got in training," said the back-rower, who has secured employment with a building firm near his Wakefield home.

"But I think (head coach) Mick Cook's doing a good job for the amount of time you get.

"Pre-season has been very good. Mick and (assistant-coach) Jason Ramshaw have been working us well in training and things are looking good.

"I'm very happy with the decision to come to York. It's an ambitious club which has got good plans, and the team we've got, from what I've seen, looks like it can do well in Division One.

"It's York's first season in there and we want to be steady-away and cement our place in that league as one of the good teams.

"From what I've seen in the last two games and in training we look like we've got the makings of a good side."

The Knights faced a strong Wakefield outfit featuring nine first-team regulars and virtually a first-choice pack.

And Spicer reckoned the hosts went well. "We gave too many penalties away but all in all we improved," he said.

"We had goals set out after last week's game against Leeds and I think we picked things up.

"We'll now be looking ahead to Hull (friendly on February 5) and looking to improve again.

"I thought the lads dug deep and stuck together. Possession was against us a lot but we restricted them well. They rarely broke through us and our team spirit was excellent."

Knights boss Cook said: "It was a massive defensive performance.

"We cleaned up a lot around the ruck, which we had spoken about, and we defended our line aggressively. Most of the tries we conceded were from kicks, with some rebounds.

"I'm not too disappointed. We've lost but we will take the positives and there were quite a lot.

"We worked very hard and we showed a lot of attitude and enthusiasm. We had long periods without the ball - our handling let us down a bit - but we will keep building.

"We did not have a lot of territory in the first half. There were times when the last pass let us down or we got tackled into touch but we were finding some spaces.

"I'm happy with the squad and the way they hung on in there. We worked pretty hard to keep them out and I'm happy with the way we're developing."

Updated: 10:05 Saturday, January 21, 2006