YORK City Knights stars have resolved to look forward to their promotion challenge rather than dwell on the misery of a semi-final defeat.

The Knights were beaten in the Arriva Trains Cup last four at Hull KR on Sunday, but at the end of the game went into a huddle in the centre of the pitch where, instead of bemoaning their loss, they geed themselves up for the challenge to come.

The defeat would have been especially galling for Knights captain Lee Jackson, a Rovers fan as a boy but a Hull FC hero in his playing days, who was booed by a section of the home support. But he nevertheless led the huddle, telling the players to be proud of their achievements.

Team-mate Mark Cain told the Evening Press: "We talked about not to think negative about what we've done. We got beat on Sunday but in the cup runs we've got to one quarter-final and a semi-final and we can take a lot of positives from that.

"Losing this game was nothing to be ashamed about. We'll come to training looking forward because we've got some tough games in the next five weeks."

He added: "We've got to regroup, stick together. We've talked about games like this when it's not going for you; it's important to stick together and look forward to what we set out to achieve at the start of the season, which is to win the league."

It was an unhappy return to Craven Park for former Rovers star Cain but he remained realistic about the defeat.

"We had our backs to the wall," he said. "We were down to the bare bones and there were a lot of brave players in there and on another day it might have come off.

"We went there and tried our best but unfortunately it was not good enough on the day.

"We kept coming up with errors and every time we tried to stem it, we came up with another one."

He added: "If we had our first-choice team out we would have given them a better game but you're not going to compete with teams like Hull KR running at a completion rate like we did.

"In the first half we competed pretty well but when you give the ball away in your own half, you're going to have your backs to the wall."

Updated: 10:28 Tuesday, June 29, 2004