YORK City Knights are close to signing a new dual-registration partnership with Castleford Tigers - potentially opening the door for double Player of the Year Greg Minikin to make a swift return to the Minster city.

Knights major shareholder John Guildford said agreement had almost been reached for the arrangement to run into a third year, and Cas chief executive Steve Gill confirmed discussions had been fruitful.

The Press understands agreement now has to be ratified by the Tigers board and head coach Daryl Powell.

It had previously been unclear just how far talks had advanced and, with the Super League season starting next weekend, the clock was ticking.

"We have agreed a number of things verbally and we've now got formalities to sign and submit to the Rugby Football League," Guildford told The Press.

"We believe it will be good for the club and gives us good options."

Gill said: "We have been in discussions with York looking for a way forward to continue with dual-registration.

"We (at Cas) are going to discuss it as a group on Tuesday with head coach Daryl Powell and if he's happy with everything we will move forward and come to a conclusion then."

Guildford would not say which players, if any, had been earmarked for a dual-reg switch to the League One promotion-seekers.

However, Minikin - who was York's Press and Players' Player of the Year in 2015, earning a two-year full-time deal with the Tigers in the process - and fellow 20-year-old Ash Robson, who has impressed throughout pre-season as he too bids to forge a Super League career, could be among those lined up to make the temporary switch to Bootham Crescent.

Full-back Robson, the former York Acorn ARLC junior, was arguably the man of the match in Castleford's 20-16 friendly victory over the Knights last week, while centre Minikin scored a superb late solo try to win it.

A number of the Tigers' under-19s who played that night could also be pencilled in for senior action with York, with Kieran Gill one name apparently in the mix

When asked if Minikin or Robson were likely to don the York shirt this year, Guildford said: "If Cas were to make either available, I imagine the head coach James Ford would consider it.

"There are several players at Cas who would benefit from playing in open-age competition and you could see when they played against us that there are a number of players that are capable of lifting their level."

Dual-reg rules have changed slightly for this year.

Last year, DR players had to play five games of the regular season to be eligible to feature in the all-important play-offs. But they could only be registered for one team post-July - either the parent club or the borrowing club - and most were recalled by the Super League outfits.

This year, players will be able to play for either club in the Super 8s and play-offs, but they must have made eight regular-season appearances to be eligible for their lower league side after the July deadline.

In the first year of the York-Cas link-up, four players were used on dual-reg - Jake Webster (one game), Dan Fleming (one game), Ben Reynolds (16 games) and Brad Day (four games), though only Reynolds was eligible for the play-offs.

There were four players again last year - James Clare (seven games), Jordan Howden (17 games) and Michael Channing (seven games), but only Howden was available for the play-offs.