YORK Knights head coach Andrew Henderson admits that it was not meant to be for his side at Batley on Sunday - but he could seldom have asked for more effort from his players.

The Knights were faced with both a Batley Bulldogs side seeking to earn a fifth consecutive Betfred Championship victory and the famous Mount Pleasant slope, but dealt with both admirably.

However, with nine players sidelined through injury, and many playing out of position, the superior quality of their third-placed opponents ultimately won through, Dale Morton crossing for what proved to be the winning try inside the final minute.

Despite that, Henderson was delighted with the effort shown by his side, but admitted that should they have fielded more quality, they would have left West Yorkshire with a crucial two points.

“We’ve had an abundance of effort in recent weeks, but we just haven’t got that little bit of quality that we need to just win a game against these better teams,” he conceded.

“I think that we’ve had a good month leading into these last two weeks and we picked up four wins on the bounce but against the better sides, we’re just seeing that that little bit of quality missing is probably hurting us a little bit.

“The effort was fantastic, it really was.

“We started the first half going downhill and we’re going into half time at 4-4, it was a really closely-fought contest in that first half.

“I think that the difference was probably that Batley were starting their sets in a better field position than we were.

“I think that our lack of kicking game was clear to see in that first half – we weren’t really putting the ball in the right end of the field at the end of sets.

“We were getting through our sets well, but we weren’t quite finishing them well enough.”

The Knights made a nightmare start to the second half to concede both a try and a penalty, but Henderson believes that his side took heed of his half-time team talk thereafter.

“It was 4-4 at half time, but we came out in the second half and it was a poor start for us," he said.

"We failed to get to a kick, and then we had three errors on the bounce.

“Those errors ultimately turned into points for Batley because they put them in the field position to score."

However, falling behind only served to spur the Knights into action, with Batley's downhill advantage rendered almost insignificant for the remainder of the half as they were routinely pinned back to within their own 30 metre line.

“We’re 10-4 down, but then the mentality of the team changed," Henderson enthused.

 "They listened to some of the things that I said to them at half time and I thought we were a lot more direct with the ball.

“We took the metres on offer going forwards up the hill, and all of a sudden you started to see the momentum of the game swing. 

“I thought that we were finishing our sets a lot better than Batley in the right areas and I thought that we saw a real frontload in defence for us – some of the line speed was outstanding.

“I just felt that we took control of that game in the second half, we really did."

He continued: "We score, it’s 10-8 and we miss another goal kick which is another one that we really need to put over, and the game was really in the balance.

“I still felt that even with five or six minutes to go, that we could really win the game.

"I felt that we had the edge over our opponents, but in those last four minutes, we concede a penalty and then Batley score off the last play of the game to take the game to the end.

“Overall, I’m very, very disappointed because I believe that we could have come here with a disjointed team and got a performance and a result, but it wasn’t meant to be."