YORK City Knights boss James Ford bemoaned the “worst performance in my time in charge” after his side’s 100 per cent record in Kingstone Press League One came to a crashing end.

Following eight straight wins against League One opposition in all competitions this term, the Knights fell 50-12 at bogey team Barrow to lose ground on the early pace-setters in the table, albeit with games in hand.

It also made it ten consecutive defeats to the Cumbrians, a losing run stretching back to 2007.

They had suffered a virus in the camp this week, ruling out four more players on top of those already out injured, and also lost hooker Harry Carter to potentially serious knee ligament damage in the first half. But Ford refused to blame those factors.

“That’s the worst performance I’ve seen from my team in however many months I’ve been in charge,” said the 33-year-old, who took over at the end of 2014.

“York City Knights are too good a club to accept that.

“It was not through lack of effort, it wasn’t intentional. Collectively we’ve just not hit our standards.

“Barrow ran harder than us, tackled harder than us and got on top of us a little bit. They kicked the ball better and that got them a lot of territory and took energy out of my team.

“Jonny Presley and Danny Nicklas (half-backs) were outstanding last week but here they were miles below their best.

“I could not recognise what we were doing on play five half the time.”

He added: “Even as poorly as we played we still wasted so many chances - two on ones, three on twos. We could have won the game, as ridiculous as that sounds, but I’m almost glad we didn’t.

“We will have a thorough review of this on Tuesday, and I will be looking for a response in training this week.

“I want to see some leadership and character and mental strength after a performance as poor as that.

“It’s important the boys stick together and come back stronger.”

In addition to Carter, Russ Spiers and Brett Turner also needed treatment during the game for head injuries, the former after a dangerous spear tackle and the latter after a high tackle. Spiers returned to the action late on, while Turner likewise should be okay for next week’s clash with North Wales Crusaders.

Asked if injuries and illness played a part in the defeat, Ford said: “We were beaten by a better team on the day.

“We’re not going to point to players missing. I believe the 17 out there were good enough to win the game.

“To be fair to Barrow, they were excellent. They were more disciplined and well-organised. I hope Paul Crarey (Barrow coach) is proud of what they produced. I haven’t seen many better performances in this league.

“But we need to make sure we learn from this and give ourselves the best chance of coming back from a performance like that.”