YORK City Knights' burgeoning prop star, Brad Nicholson, has picked up an injury away from the club - but boss James Ford admits he can't be too mad with him.

Nicholson was arguably the find of last season after a breakthrough year which yielded 23 appearances - missing only six games - and eight tries, more by far than any other front-rower.

But he has suffered an early setback in preparations for 2016 after picking up a thigh strain while doing some extra gym work, seemingly without the conditioning staff's knowledge.

Ford says the 20-year-old needs to learn how best to push himself, but admits an eagerness to do overtime on the weights cannot be criticised.

"Brad has picked up a thigh strain away from the club," Ford confirmed.

"It's all part of Brad's long-term development - he needs to learn to manage his training loads a bit better.

"We want players to do extra training but it has to be the right kind and right amount of training to prevent the possibility of picking up an injury."

Nicholson, who joined York from Featherstone a year ago, will be fit for the start of the campaign in February but the fact he now misses a big chunk of pre-season immediately puts him on the back foot and needing to play catch-up on his return to training.

Ford added: "He's been doing some training away from us to try to get an advantage, and it's probably been a bit too much.

"It's disappointing he's picked up the injury but it's something he can learn from.

"We're not going to stop him doing it - we want to promote people training well and doing bits off their own devices - but players need to make sure that it's relayed to us."

On Nicholson's extra efforts, he said: "It is a positive in the sense that he is training to better himself, and that will help him kick on, but it needs to be the right amount and kind of work.

"We're not necessarily upset with him, we just need to educate him a bit."

Nicholson is the second prop to get crocked in pre-season, Micky Learmonth having suffered a freak horror injury during routine strength testing when the players reconvened for the first time.

Learmonth, also 20, pulled a tendon off the bone and needed an operation to have it reattached. He is likely to remain sidelined for six months.

Skipper James Haynes remains on the sidelines too but has now gone through his knee reconstruction and reports a successful operation.

Haynes wrote on social media: "The ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) reconstruction was a success looking forward to getting stuck into some rehab and eventually getting back into a @yorkknightsrlfc shirt."

Haynes, having overcome career-threatening back problems in recent seasons, suffered his knee injury in an innocuous-looking challenge during the Knights' win over Oxford on August 9.

New recruit Austin Buchanan is also on the treatment table, only doing restricted training as he awaits an upcoming hernia operation that will keep him out of action for a month.