ALEX BENSON has given a forthright opinion on York City Knights’ current predicament – and says every player must now earn their crust if they are to pull away from the Championship drop zone.

The Knights were left just two points from safety – and with a harder run-in than teams below them – after Sunday’s farcically high-scoring 76-38 defeat at Halifax, which followed the disappointing home loss to the then bottom club Toulouse.

Club captain Benson – who is in talks about staying at Huntington Stadium next year – was one of the few players to emerge from Sunday’s defensive debacle with any credit, and he also got the players together on the pitch after the final hooter in a bid to lift spirits.

However, he has questioned whether each player in the line-up has given 100 per cent to the cause, and he believes attitudes among the entire squad must hit new highs for the last four games of the season, starting with another tough test at home to title-challengers Featherstone a week on Friday.

Every player, he says, must find their own motivation to give their all, whether or not they are to remain at York next term.

“Sunday was very disappointing,” said the prop forward, who was forced into a 65-minute stint due largely to below-par performances around him.

“We waited a couple of weeks after Toulouse and we wanted to make a positive start. We did that at the beginning – defensively we were okay and we scored a few points – but, as against Toulouse, we just fell away.

“Our goal-line defence wasn’t the best, the decision-making wasn’t very good, and our contacts were a bit soft. It all just went away from us.

“We know we’re in a dogfight but we don’t do ourselves any favours. We had a great opportunity to pull away from the pack (at the bottom of the table) but let ourselves down.

“I don’t know if it’s attitude, or people feeling too comfortable, or what. We all say the right things but then don’t put it into practice.”

He added: “It’s strange how we can play like we did against Batley, with our defence spot-on, and against Widnes, when we defended pretty well, but then switch off against Toulouse, while this game too is a completely different story.

“The modern game is all about defence. We can score points, so if we can fix our defence we’d be fine.”

What Benson said on the pitch at the end of the game remains in-house, but he explained: “I just tried to pick out positives.

“Individually we all felt a bit beaten up mentally, down in the dumps.

“The coaching staff weren’t going to be best pleased. I just said we had to take it on the chin – we deserve the rollickings we get but we have to pick up and start afresh.

“We’ve now got another weekend off, which isn’t the best thing in my opinion as it would be good to get straight back out there and rectify things, but we have to pick things up.”

As for finding the improvements needed to collect crucial league points, he reckoned attitude was key.

“We’ve got to be completely honest with each other,” he said. “We can’t keep making mistakes. If it’s an attitude thing then that’s a worry.

“For me, every individual has got something to play for - lots to play for.

“Firstly, any player at any level wants to win games. As professionals, there’s also money involved, with players on bonuses, and it’s also coming to the time of year where people are playing for contracts. Most importantly we’re in a relegation dogfight.

“If you can’t motivate yourself to play well, using any one of those things as incentives, what else is there to do? Nobody else can do it for you.

“If, from one to 17, each individual looks after themselves then collectively it looks after itself.

“Individually there are pretty good performances and people are working hard, but I’m not sure every single person is, otherwise we wouldn’t be on the end of results like that.

“To score these sort of points at Halifax – 38 of them – then you’d expect to win, but conceding 70-plus is just disgusting.

“We all have to take responsibility and, if we do that, how we finish is in our own hands.”