YORK City Knights boss James Ford sang the praises of Kriss Brining after the hooker singlehandedly sparked a stunning comeback which almost snatched a remarkable result on their last home game of term.

The Knights, having already secured a play-off berth in League One, were “terrible” for the opening hour against Doncaster and trailed 30-0 but then scored five tries in 15 minutes to come back to within two points with a minute left and the conversion to come.

However, Tyler Craig could not add a fifth goal from the touchline to level the scores, and an interception try on the hooter by ex-Knight Jordan Howden secured a 36-28 Donny win.

“He’s carried the team in this game," said Ford of 22-year-old Brining, who is bound for Super League Salford next year.

“If I could have got Kriss Brining playing the ball to Kriss Brining and running off himself I would have done.

“He was outstanding and a lot of the other players weren’t.

“Sometimes he gets stick from me and the coaches because we know how good he is and we expect a lot of him.

“He’s an incredible athlete - very quick, very strong, good balance. He’s stronger than he looks and challenges people physically. He’s maturing into a wonderful player.”

The result saw Doncaster go back above York into fourth with one game to go, and also brought revenge for Ford’s predecessor as Knights boss, Gary Thornton, following their 46-16 defeat in the reverse fixture in March.

Ford said: “Five or six errors on play one and two or three daft penalties for no reason put ourselves under an awful lot of pressure and we weren’t good enough to deal with it.

“Hats off to Doncaster. Our old boys like Brad Nicholson and Jordan Howden would have enjoyed the win.

“Fair play to GT. We got one over on them at the start of the season. Gary was gracious in defeat that day and he’s been gracious in victory.

“We will have a good look at what we did in the first hour. It was not good enough. It was as poor as I’ve seen us.

“We then got momentum – 28 points and Tyler Craig was unlucky with that conversion. We looked hard to handle. That showed our character, but the first half was terrible.

“We never gave up. We spoke at half-time about not being able to play as badly as we did in the first half. We knew if we could put pressure on Doncaster we still fancied our chances.

“At the start of the second half we didn’t do that.

“But the game changed when we brought Kriss Brining back on.”

Ford, having seen Mark Applegarth, Austin Buchanan and Micky Learmonth join the unavailable list at the weekend, did not blame injuries for the defeat.

“I had 17 good players on the field but for 60 minutes I could not recognise them.

“Whatever was missing they need to rectify it as a group.”

Ford is hoping Brandon Westerman does not join that list long-term, despite departing with a bicep injury.

“He wanted to play on but we had concerns about making it worse and him missing the rest of the season.”