JAMES FORD immediately promised a renewed promotion push next season after watching his York City Knights side suffer play-off semi-final agony in the most dramatic of circumstances.

The Knights were 12 seconds from victory when Swinton's Ben White kicked a drop goal to equalise, and White's half-back partner Chris Atkin then won the tie with a golden-point drop goal in the fifth minute of extra time.

The Lions go on to meet Keighley, victors over North Wales Crusaders, in next week's Kingstone Press League One play-off final - leaving many of the Knights team in tears in the changing room.

Head coach Ford, though, insisted he had nothing but pride in his players for their achievements during a year in which the club have been beset by off-field problems leaving them with a broken pre-season, no home and without a training base for the majority of the year.

And he quickly stated their promotion target in 2016.

"I can't fault the effort or commitment from my boys - they were outstanding for that," he said.

"To play for nearly 90 minutes at that intensity and show that much energy - that comes from our togetherness.

"We're all devastated we couldn't go that little bit further. We deserved to get there. But hats off to Swinton - they were composed to get those two one-pointers at the end.

"I'm not going to make excuses about our pre-season or all the off-field rubbish. We were good enough to win this game and good enough to get promoted.

"We haven't quite achieved that. I'm aware that's my responsibility and I will be looking at how I can improve and how the coaching team can improve.

"At the same time we've got an awful lot of boys who are young and getting better all the time.

"In our back line we had two or three blokes who have only played ten first-games and they've come away to a team like Swinton and come within ten seconds of winning.

"They should be really proud of themselves because I am and I hope all the York fans are as well."

Ford, in his maiden season as head coach, added: "We need to start getting our heads together - myself and the board and the coaching team - and put a squad together that's even better than this one, and this is the best one I've seen at York in my five years here.

"The boys here are winners, the major shareholder (John Guildford), like him or not, is a winner, the board are winners. They won't be happy we haven't got promoted. That responsibility lies with me. You can bet we will be going for promotion next year for sure.

"We need to come back bigger, better, stronger."

The Knights scored four tries to Swinton's three but crucially missed all their conversions - two each by Ben Dent and Jordan Howden.

Said Ford: "As far as I'm concerned, we win together and we lose together. There is no blame from me or the players.

"The character we'd showed to defend our goal-line was outstanding. We gifted Swinton four or five freebies from dropping the ball coming out of exit, but we came through that.

"We were good enough to win but fair play to Swinton - they were good enough to pip us at the end.

"A couple of questionable calls went against us - the Adam Dent break and scoring pass inside being called forward - but the referee's had a really good game and I hope we see more of him next year.

"I expect he will get moved up to the Championship - so maybe I should criticise him and he might stay in our league.

"Best of luck to Swinton next week. With all the emotional stuff Keighley have been through (following the tragic death earlier in the year of player Danny Jones), good luck to them too.

"I'm sure it will be a great game to watch and maybe I won't be quite as stressed and can enjoy it a bit more."