BOSS Mick Cook said York City Knights were "restoring pride in themselves" despite the agony of falling through the trapdoor.

The joy of a victory at Doncaster yesterday was tempered at the final hooter as news filtered through to the players and large travelling support that Rochdale had beaten Halifax, thus sealing the Knights' relegation.

Cook, though, said he was proud of his players' efforts yesterday and that the team would now be determined to win their last two games for the supporters.

"We're pretty tight as a unit and all we can do is end the season on a winning note," he said.

"It will be great to finish off at home with a win against Rochdale next week just to reward the fans, who were excellent again."

The Knights had been on the brink of relegation for some time. Their "mission impossible" had required them to win their last four games, with Rochdale losing all theirs. Cook's men have kept to their side of the bargain with wins over Whitehaven and now Doncaster, but the Hornets had other ideas.

"Relegation was always hanging around the corner, but we're restoring some pride in ourselves," said Cook. "We've gone to Doncaster and put on a real big effort.

"It's been a frustrating season for everybody. I always knew this team were capable of playing like they have in the last couple of games, even in the face of adversity like we had again yesterday."

That adversity mainly concerned a long injury list, which was augmented yesterday as props Jamie Bovill and Adam Sullivan suffered knee and ankle ligament damage respectively.

Cook, though, has never sought excuses. "Injuries are part of the game," he said.

"We can't be looking for excuses - we're not a soft team. We look at performance and, over the season, the players have had opportunities to win games and we've not done that enough through various things.

"But we're looking to improve as individuals and I have to say the commitment is second to none at the moment.

"We spoke a few weeks ago about proving to ourselves we can win at this level and we've done that. All we can do now is keep proving to ourselves and to other teams in the competition that we're a threat.

"We're where we are because we did not get enough points. We're picking them up now but it's too late.

"But I'm proud of the way we've dug in and we're proving to people we can do it with these results we're getting."

In addition to Bovill and Sullivan's first-half exits, Jason Golden and Jamaine Wray struggled on through hamstring problems and Jon Liddell through bad bruising.

"We only had one player to use in rotation in the second half," said Cook.

"I thought the boys dug in as deep as they have all season. They all worked very hard as individuals and for each other.

"We spoke about finishing the season on a positive and in the last couple of games we've stuck to our game-plan for large periods of the game and caused the opposition lots of problems.

"The kicking game was a key factor - there was a shed-full of tries scored on the back of kicks.

"I'm not bothered about the tries Doncaster got at the end because I'm proud of what the players did yesterday.

"Relegation is hard, but the game is about enjoying what you earn and we've earned a good result yesterday. We've won a good game on merit and why not celebrate it, even though the outcome of the season is not what we wanted."