Home truth: Stadium saga is costing York City Knights points says head coach James Ford

He has also admitted his frustration at the perceived “lack of progress” being made in talks between the club and City of York Council to overcome the current community stadium impasse.

Ford did not blame Sunday’s League One defeat at Swinton solely on the current lack of permanent training facilities, but suggested his team’s development was being “inhibited”, especially with strength and conditioning - which he says was a factor on Sunday and is becoming an increasing concern.

He remained hopeful the “situation can be sorted” but that the “clock is ticking” regarding this season’s promotion goals.

“It’s inhibiting the team’s development,” he said. “We recruited a squad to develop, a squad we would like to shape into the way we want them to be as people and players. That’s becoming increasingly difficult when we’re restricted in what I can do in terms of our preparations.

“We seem to be picking up three or four injuries every week. You’ve got to be thinking how much it’s down to us not being able to train in the places or with the facilities we had planned.

“There’s evidence to support that it not only helps performance improvement but also injury prevention.

“We’re looking for different ways to get around it but the bottom line is professional rugby league players need to be big and strong.

“We need to find a way to help these players kick on in their careers and take the club where we want to be.”

The Knights moved out of Huntington Stadium so it could be redeveloped to house both them and York City, with the project seeing the rugby club train at York St John University’s new Haxby Road facilities and play in the meantime at City’s Bootham Crescent.

However, no agreement has been reached, and, since Ford took charge in the off-season, they have had to train at various venues at additional cost.

Both home matches so far have been at York RUFC’s Clifton Park ground but that does not meet Rugby Football League criteria.

Ford did not get drawn on who was to blame for the impasse but said: “I am frustrated at the lack of progress.

“I made assurances to the players that I would be leaving no stone unturned to help them improve as players. I want to take them forward. When you’ve got a team of young players, you need access to these facilities.

“Things like how we move the ball and our systems in defence are good. What’s letting us down occasionally is physicality, and our injuries, which comes from missing gym work and the appropriate conditioning programmes.

“We’ve got plans whereby we can catch up, but I’m talking four to six weeks for adaptation and for people’s performances to go up so it all needs to happen sooner rather than later.

“It’s frustrating. As a group I feel we’re doing a decent job but I know we can do better. I don’t like doing things below our best.

“We haven’t beaten Swinton away from home since I’ve been at the club, and we only got beat by five tries to six after a disjointed pre-season and disjointed training. Where would we be at if we had got all our training done?

“The clock is ticking. I still believe in this team and that we can get the situation sorted.

“If we can get things in place, it would be like signing a top new player. It would be a mental lift in the short-term and in the long- term we’d get fewer injuries and the players would be able to sustain efforts for longer periods.”

Ford added one player - whom he would not name - had played through potential serious injury at Park Lane.

“When you have people with a suspected broken rib playing 60 minutes for you - that’s an unbelievable effort. I feel like I owe them back by trying to get the situation sorted,” he said.

“I understand it’s difficult, especially when it’s such a big project. But playing rugby league is difficult. The sooner things are sorted out the better it will be for us on the playing side.

“The players deserve it, the supporters deserve it."