YORK City Knights boss James Ford revealed he withdrew Ash Robson early against Hunslet purely to save him for future weeks – after the full-back proved tormentor-in-chief in a fun-filled first-half rout against their arch-rivals.

The buoyant Knights made it six Kingstone Press League One wins on the bounce with a 52-20 thrashing of the Parksiders on their own turf.

Robson was withdrawn on 50 minutes just after the home team had got one consolation try back, with the score at 42-4. There were suggestions Ford made the substitution to stop frustrations boiling over, with the hosts having struggled to handle him all game and words being apparently exchanged on the pitch, but he said it was mainly about “managing his workload”.

“He’s had his injury problems last year and I just want to manage his minutes a little bit,” said Ford of the York-born former Castleford ace.

“We want him available for every game as he’s such an important player and I just took him off to manage his workload for the season.

“I thought the game was pretty much up.

“We did lose our concentration and made a couple of errors and the game became a bit scratchy, which is something we need to work on, but we knew we had the win.”

He added of the former York Acorn ARLC junior, the Press' man of the match: “He’s big for a full-back and he’s got unbelievable footwork and acceleration and strength. It makes him hard to handle.

“There are some areas of his game he needs to improve but he’s still a young boy and if his attitude remains as it is, with his willingness to work and to learn, we have a potentially remarkable player in Ash.”

Six converted tries without reply had secured the game before the break and Ford was delighted with that super show – all after his team had been forced to defend their goal-line for the first 10 minutes.

“It’s a hard place to come and win. I would have taken a one-point victory at the start of the game,” he said.

“I’m really pleased with the first-half – we were excellent and looked like a team that could go on and really compete this season.

“In the second half we looked like a team that needs to improve a bit.

“We did fall off but I don’t want to take anything away from Hunslet. They had a 10 to 15-minute period where they looked a decent team – they had us for a period.”

He added: “It might have been a different game if we hadn’t shown that resilience to defend that amount that early on.”

The result gave Ford a second win this season against his predecessor at York, Gary Thornton, who was taking charge of his second Hunslet game having left Doncaster a month ago.

“In the second half we were a bit scratchy. Gary’s changed one or two things at half-time and they made a game of it,” said Ford.

“But I’m really proud of the first-half performance.

“The mental strength we showed to defend our own line for 10 solid minutes and then go in front showed how resolute we are at this club.

“We’ve got some really talented players.”

Ford gave a debut to scrum-half Connor Robinson – having said in the build-up he would stick with veteran Jonny Presley alongside the in-form Liam Harris – but he had to make last-minute changes as Andy Ellis (calf) and Jake Butler-Fleming (hamstring) pulled out in the warm-up.

Nevertheless, he had been aware the pair were injury doubts so Will Jubb and Nev Morrison travelled as like-for-like replacements.

It is unclear if Butler-Fleming, who had arrived on dual-reg from Hull KR, will be available for selection again given he has been a regular for the Robins this season.

“It’s disruptive to lose someone as important as Andy Ellis but Will is a great kid and he did well again,” said Ford.

“We were giving Andy and Jake until the warm-up so Nev and Will knew they could play – we were ready for it.”

Meanwhile, Ford said he was optimistic former Hull FC winger Callum Lancaster would agree terms this week.

The 20-year-old, who blasted onto the Super League scene as a 17-year-old with two hat-tricks in his first four appearances for Hull, had a trial with York last month following his release by the Airlie Birds. He was offered a deal over a week ago.