LIAM Finn credited Halifax Panthers’ resilience as they recovered from a dreadful start to comfortably beat York Knights 38-18 at The Shay on Sunday.

The Panthers hardly had a sniff of the ball inside the opening quarter of an hour but profited from the Knights’ implosion to lead 22-14 at the break before pulling clear in the second half to earn back-to-back wins for the first time this season.

York, whose triumph against Swinton Lions the previous weekend had left them within touching distance of the play-offs, started like a train, with an Ata Hingano penalty and Connor Bailey try handing them an 8-0 lead inside as many minutes.

But Halifax hit back through James Woodburn-Hall, who danced around some woeful defence to crash over to the right of the posts, before Ben Crooks handed them the lead four minutes later.

Brad Ward tipped the scoreboard back in York’s favour midway through the half, but tries from Charlie Graham and Louis Jouffret - the latter a mere nine seconds before the half-time hooter - ensured the Panthers had daylight.

Graham’s second kickstarted the second-half scoring on 53 minutes, but though Jacob Gannon’s first Knights try threatened to set up an interesting final 20 minutes, both captain Joe Keyes and Jouffret crossed the whitewash late on to round off victory for the hosts.

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Finn though was delighted with his side’s response and team spirit after being faced with a barrage of back-to-back defensive sets inside the opening 15 minutes.

Speaking to the club’s media team, he explained: "We didn’t start the game doing anything particularly wrong, but we did end up on the back end of defending for nine sets in a row and not even touching the ball.

“We were 8-0 down on the scoreboard, but I challenge any team in rugby league to defend nine or 10 sets back-to-back and see if they can hold them out.

“What the pleasing thing was is the fact of how we came out of that period and once, when we got the ball, we were able to roll York downfield.

“They were relatively fresh after having had a lot of possession and we had to find a way of getting our energy back up. 

“We did that by working hard and sticking together.”