DAVE WOODS bemoaned the bloopers committed by his York City Knights side after they lost at arch-rivals Hunslet.

The Knights were well in the game at the John Charles Stadium yesterday but gaffes in defence and, more glaringly, in attack cost them dearly as they lost 34-18 to the Championship One leaders.

They also suffered again at the hands of referee Clint Sharrad, as they trailed 7-0 at half-time in the penalty count, finishing 11-7 down at full-time. Sharrad earned York fans’ wrath with his performance when the Knights lost at Blackpool earlier in the season.

Woods said: “Every time we got back into the game we did something stupid and let them back in again. I’m not happy with it at all. I expect a lot more than that.

“We also played too much one-out rugby. We asked them to mix it up a bit and when we did do it we looked really good with the ball. But we were too content just to carry the ball forward.

“Brett Waller and Jack Stearman did good jobs going forward and made lots of yards, but we needed more push with them.”

The most notable errors were by full-back Danny Wilson, who, after the Knights had got on top, fumbled a chip on his own goal-line for former Knights player-coach Paul March to steal in and take the Hawks two scores clear again, and prop Nathan Freer, who, with the Knights pressing again, went in at acting-half and kicked the ball out of play.

Woods said: “He (Wilson) took it too easy and you can’t do that. He went up for it and caught it but Paul March took it straight off him. You can’t afford to do things like that.

“Then (when Freer kicked), Jack Lee was at first receiver calling for the ball, and he does that. We took far too many wrong options.”

At least Freer was aware enough to go in at dummy-half. Woods added: “Our reactions weren’t quick or good enough. We’ve been doing work on that but we’ve failed on that yesterday.

“Wayne Reittie did some good things but he came up with three poor errors, and you can’t do that.”

Woods added: “They got the Wilson try, they got the two tries going from dummy-half. That’s 18 points just there that we’ve gifted them without them even trying. Yet we were still in the game – that’s what’s so disappointing.

“Hunslet are supposed to be the best in the competition and they had that penalty count and our errors, and we had players out and lost Danny Allan (to concussion). There were all these things and we were still in it.”

Woods admitted he had a word with Mancunian official Sharrad as he walked off at half-time.

“I just mentioned there were two teams,” he said. “We’ve worked really hard on our discipline. One week you only give a penalty away after 30 minutes and only three in the whole game, and the next week you’re about 10-0 down (on the penalty count) at half-time – yet your discipline hasn’t changed that much.

“There was the try from Danny Ratcliffe. It was a planned move so he knows he has to stay on-side but they called him offside.

“Some of his decisions were really ordinary.”