YORK City Knights have added further to their squad for 2014 – but the 2013 campaign is fast becoming a priority of greater concern.

Tom Carr, Jonny Presley and local lad Ed Smith have all signed new one-year deals to follow on from the announcement on Friday night that Sam Scott, Jack Lee, Ryan Mallinder and Jack Latus were also staying.

The recruitment news goes a long way to allaying fears the club are in danger of folding due to the costly court case against former boss Dave Woods.

However, worries over their more immediate future grew following yesterday’s 20-4 defeat at home to Woods’ current team, Whitehaven, which left them two points off the drop zone.

It was the Aussie’s first time back at Huntington Stadium as an opposing coach since his sacking in September 2011 and he admitted it was a sweet victory given recent events.

Knights boss Gary Thornton, on the other hand, was left “very, very frustrated” after a fourth defeat on the bounce.

Two of those losses saw victory snatched from them in the dying seconds. This time, they were denied a bonus point by a try three minutes from time, which meant they dropped to 12th in the Kingstone Press Championship following Barrow’s win over Hunslet.

The Hawks, second bottom, also closed the gap having picked up a bonus point from their second-half fightback.

Said Thornton: “We looked off the pace compared to how we’ve been. Some of our attacking play, even though we’ve lost the last two games at the death, has been good, against Barrow especially. But we had no cutting edge to open up Whitehaven.

“We had some chances and bombed a couple of opportunities. We did not have the quality to finish them off. The rub of the green did not go our way but some of the skills work let us down.”

“At the death we conceded a try that takes the bonus point away. Bonus points are scant consolation when you want to win but when you don’t get anything it takes confidence out of you.

“We’re in a very precarious position and the next two games coming up (at Halifax and at home to champions Sheffield) are going to be very difficult encounters. We’ve got to lift ourselves and try to get a bit of confidence from somewhere.”

The Knights managed only one try yesterday, a long-range interception effort by winger Dougie Flockhart. Thornton, again bemoaning the absence of suspended stand-off Simon Brown, said: “We tried hard defensively but could not crack them open. We again missed a key playmaker who can do the right things at the right time.

“We didn’t seem to work with the game-plan. We kept coming inside to where Whitehaven had all their strong players and never got them on the fringes.”

Thornton added that coping with big opposing packs, like Haven’s, had been a “weakness all season”. “We struggle to handle big teams up the middle. Whitehaven are one of the biggest,” he said. “It take a lot of energy out of you when you’re defending against big players. The try by Paul Jackson (Whitehaven prop, on 66 minutes) was a bit soft but that was due to all the juice being taken out of our team.”

Meanwhile, Woods admitted being hurt by some of the verbal and internet abuse he took from Knights fans in respect of last week’s course case.

“I was quite nervous coming to the game and I don’t normally get nervous,” he said. “You hear some of the abuse – if it was correct and I was getting this for the right reasons, then fine. But fans are buying some of the things that have been said and they want to abuse you, and I think that’s poor.

“I came here as a coach of an opposing team to take the points and, after that (abuse) it made it sweeter. I’ve done nothing wrong to the club and I’ve got some good friends there including some players, and it’s a shame it’s gone like that.”