HEAD coach James Ford says his new-look York City Knights side will quickly get better after their opening run-out of 2017 ended in a 46-4 defeat at Featherstone Rovers.

The young League One team – with 11 new boys in the starting 13 following the massive turnover of players since last season – trailed 20-0 inside 15 minutes of Ian Hardman’s testimonial match but gradually made a game of it against the Championship big hitters.

Ford was not happy with the final result but said there were positives to take from the run-out against the “best team we will play this year”, and he predicted improvement before London Broncos come to Bootham Crescent on January 29 for the next pre-season friendly.

“We’re disappointed with the scoreline – 46 points is a lot to concede – but it was our first hit-out and Featherstone’s third,” said Ford.

“We had a lot of new players and you could tell, certainly in that first 20 minutes, but we grew as a group and settled in. There were plenty of positives – character was one. They could have mauled us if we’d crumbled but we showed fight.

“Tim Spears, Chris Siddons, Harry Carter were good for us in the middle, and we tidied up coming out of yardage.

“I knew we would be unorganised in good ball as we haven’t done any of that in training so far and we will get better. Our timing was awful at times.

“We did some naïve things defensively and they’re things we need to get out of our system. Once we got into a rhythm I don’t think we looked too far away.

“We fluffed a couple of chances as well which could have made the scoreline look a lot less unfavourable.

“But Featherstone will be the best team we’ll play this year – no disrespect to Toronto, who have some world-class players but are a new team. Featherstone are an established top-end Championship team who have added some eye-catching signings. For the last hour we did okay.

“If we can smarten up in one or two areas we can move some distance."

After that early onslaught, the Knights restricted the half-time scoreline to 26-0 and got on the scoreboard in the second period through substitute James Haynes, who had entered the fray at centre.

Rovers' veteran full-back, Hardman, fittingly completed the scoring on the final whistle, having also crossed in the last minute of the first half.

“We had 11 new boys in our starting 13," said Ford. "It’s about building and growing. We will be better against London Broncos.

"We came into pre-season very late compared to other sides. We played the first 20 minutes looking like that but as the game progressed we settled in and looked better.”