BOSS Gary Thornton has suggested his future might not be at York City Knights after seeing them crash out of the Kingstone Press Championship One promotion play-offs.

Thornton’s team topped the table at the end of the regular season but the 32-24 defeat by arch-rivals Hunslet, following the loss to Oldham seven days earlier, ended their campaign one game shy of the Grand Final.

It killed their aim of bouncing straight back to the Championship following relegation last year and means they will not be part of the restructured division which will include fallen giants Bradford Bulls and the chance of mixing it with Super League sides.

Club chairman John Guildford has always said Thornton’s future would be decided at the end of the season. He was unavailable for comment tonight - on either that or his recent tweets that 14 players had agreed to stay, depending on the division they are in.

But failure to take the team back up clearly leaves Thornton’s destiny in doubt, even though they won the league and despite the fact he is shortlisted for the division’s Coach of the Year award.

Asked about next season, Thornton himself said the future remained bright for the young team, but suggested he might not be the one still tasked with leading them.

“That’s a question to put to John Guildford,” he said. “My contract expires in October and I haven’t been offered a new one.

“They’re a great group of players, a fantastic group to work with. They’ve got a fantastic future if the club can keep them together. That’s the key - keeping them together.

“I’ve had a fantastic time at York and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, especially this season which has been terrific.

“It is a real low point but we’ve bounced back from relegation well and showed we’re the best team in this division. We are champions after all and in any other year that would have got us promoted.”

He added: “I’d like to give a massive thanks to the York fans who have been through thick and thin. I’m really sorry we could not get over the final hurdle for them.

“But they will still have a good team to cheer here next year.”

Thornton’s side had won each of the three league fixtures with Hunslet this year but fell in the fourth and most important meeting.

They had repelled Hawks pressure throughout the first half to nick a 12-0 lead at the interval but an error-strewn third quarter kept them pinned back and, once the Hawks broke through, they went on to score all of their 32 points in the final 25 minutes, going ahead for the first time with only eight minutes left.

“In the first ten or 15 minutes of the second half we could not get out of our 20 or 30,” said Thornton. “We came up with errors and, when they got back-to-back tries (on 55 and 58 minutes), they got their tails up and we could not stem them.

“I will not criticise my boys. In the first half defensively we were fantastic. Hunslet threw everything at us and we repelled everything. That’s possibly taken its toll towards the back end of the game.

“Hunslet seemed to get more energy on us and we struggled to get out of our half in that spell.”

Ryan Backhouse’s try with two minutes left after Gavin Duffy was sin-binned gave York a glimmer of a great escape, but Ben Reynolds’ hopeful chip and chase over the defence brought only a counter-attack by Hawks full-back Jimmy Watson and a match-clinching try on the hooter by James Duckworth.

Said Thornton of that final do-or-die play: “The clock was against us. The scoreline doesn’t reflect that we had to go for it. We had no choice. Four points behind with a minute to go - on another day, if it bounces kindly, Ben is a hero. But it didn’t come off.”

The Knights had suffered a blow on the eve of the game with player/assistant-coach James Ford - one of few old heads in the team - ruled out by a hamstring tweak. Tyler Craig came in, giving the team an average age of 22.

Said Thornton: “Our game management was not great. We probably needed another old head out there to steer us around.

“We’re a young bunch and we could have done with all the experience we can get. Having that extra experience probably would have helped.

“We gave it our best shot but at the end of the day it was not good enough.”