YORK Acorn's slender hopes of getting into the end-of-season play-offs hang by a frayed thread following their 34-18 loss at Lock Lane.

For 50 minutes Acorn were well in contention in this tie before injuries that left them with no bench replacements, fatigue and eventually the home side's form took the game's momentum away from them.

The real damage was done in a 15-minute period midway through the second-half, when Acorn saw a 14-10 lead swing to a 34-14 deficit.

Up until then, Acorn had been very much in this arm wrestle and in fact had probably been the better side up to half-time.

The first period - up to the half hour mark - had been dominated by defences and Acorn had been well served in this department by the sterling efforts of centre Jordan Potter, prop forward Nathan Welsh, second rower Reece Rushworth and loose forward Tom Hill.

Acorn's best player Potter, got the game's first points when he crashed over from close range for a try, goaled by stand-off Anthony Chilton.

Straight from the restart, Lock Lane put the kick out on the full and then Chilton put over the resulting penalty kick from the halfway line to increase Acorn's lead.

Acorn then committed the cardinal sin of turning their backs on a Lock Lane 20-metre tap restart. Their hosts took full advantage to breach the Acorn defensive line and flood down the other end to eventually notch an unconverted try, to reduce Acorn's lead to 8-4 at half-time.

Lock Lane came out at the start of the second-half all fired up and, with ex-York player Siddons to the fore, they took the lead on 43 minutes when they exploited Acorn's overstretched right-edged defence to go in for a converted try, that put the Castleford side into a 10-8 lead.

Just as it seemed Lock Lane were going to score again, impressive winger Ben Tenge picked up a loose pass in his own 20 and he raced 80m to score a 48th-minute try under the posts.

Chilton added the conversion to put Acorn back in front.

Then game's next score was a bitter pill for Acorn to swallow as they had their hosts pinned in their own 20 for the first four tackles in the set.

This was before one missed tackle allowed Lock Lane to turn a muted attack into a full-on one that 10 seconds later resulted in a crucial 52nd-minute score for the hosts, who added the goal to retake the lead.

Lock Lane then broke clear with 3 converted scores in a 12 minute spell that saw them move into a 34 - 14 lead with 15 minutes to go.

Acorn showed real spirit and commitment to stem Lock Lane's flow of points and in fact they managed to score the games final points on 75 minutes.

Andy Gargan had impressed when coming on as a substitute and he managed to create an unconverted try for Potter, with his famous rolling dummy and offload that left the Lock Lane defenders bemused and grasping thin air.

Acorn will hope that several players who picked up injuries during this game and one or two who missed this game due to injuries will be available for next week's must win home clash with Milford.