FLYING winger Chris Smith underlined his quality with a man-of-the-match display against Dewsbury last week which lifted him up to joint-top in the Evening Press/Collier Plant Hire player of the season standings.

The former Super League speedster has looked more comfortable since shifting to the flank from centre and he gave a terrific display of wing play albeit in a poor team performance, with his lung-bursting 40-yard diagonal dart, which set up the Knights' third try, being of particular note.

Lee Jackson wasn't as consistently good as he has been but still set up two of York's three tries with quality passes and thus earns two points to join Smith, Rich Hayes and Trevor Krause at the top, while player-coach Paul Broadbent's class showed through at times and he picks up the other point.

The Knights' best player in each match is awarded three points, the second best two points and the third best one point. At the end of the season, the player at the top wins £300 and the runner-up £150.

Standings: Hayes 5pts, Krause 5, Smith 5, Jackson 5, Callaghan 3, Ramsden 3, Godfrey 3, Hallas 3, Cain 2, Lloyd 1, Broadbent 1.

EDITORS of last week's match programme had seemingly foreseen details of that day's game versus Dewsbury.

For the team line-up had been printed in the centre pages - where details of previous Knights matches are published - along with scorers on that very day.

At first glance it looked like they might have known something everyone else didn't - ie, they were correct to say that Chris Smith and Darren Callaghan were to score a try apiece.

However, a closer inspection revealed they had got other things wrong (much like most psychics do).

As it turned out, the Challenge Cup tie at home to Doncaster had not been added to the fixture list down the left-hand side, but the line-up and scorers from that match were included in the right-hand column. This shifted some, if not all, of the team details for the previous match down into the wrong row, therefore details of the Featherstone match were put in the Dewsbury row. (And Smith and Callaghan had both scored that day too).

SPONSORSHIP of the Knights continues to grow significantly.

The club this week revealed all but one of the signed-on players have now received individual player sponsorship.The only exception is Tommy Gallagher, who has recently joined on loan from Leeds. The youngster made his debut against Featherstone and looks a fine prospect.

For details of sponsorship opportunities, contact the club on 01904 656105.

APPARENTLY, Doncaster Dragons coach St John Ellis was 'disappointed' at the Rugby Football League's decision to ban Craig Horne for four games following his late, high tackle on the Knights' Mick Ramsden.

Fair comment. Horne, found guilty of leading with the forearm/elbow, had a good previous record and his punishment will include missing the big Challenge Cup tie against Wigan.

However, I'm sure Rammo was probably 'disappointed' to be left with headaches for a week as well as a few worries as he waited a fortnight for swelling to go down in order to have X-rays on a suspected eye socket fracture.

Horne will also miss Doncaster's next visit to Huntington Stadium, in the Arriva Trains Cup on March 16.

Updated: 11:22 Saturday, March 01, 2003