FORMER York City Knights boss Gary Thornton has suggested his old club could end the Kingstone Press League One season slap bang in the promotion reckoning.

Thornton, installed as Hunslet coach last month, saw his new team hammered 52-20 on their own turf by the Knights on Sunday, James Ford’s troops making it six league victory on the bounce to go up to fourth in the table.

A battling defensive display had also seen the Knights earn a 16-8 win over Doncaster, then coached by Thornton, back at Easter, in the game that kicked off their current winning sequence.

Thornton bemoaned his new team’s lack of fitness – something he will look to improve at haste in their own bid to reach the play-offs – but he reckoned that, on this latest showing, the Knights would be a match for anyone in this division, barring big-spending full-time team Toronto, the odds-on title favourites who have been sweeping all before them.

“I was very impressed with them,” Thornton magnanimously said of Ford’s outfit, who scored at a point a minute in building a comprehensive 42-0 lead.

“From what I’ve seen, York are as good as anyone I’ve seen in this league, Toronto aside.

“I’ve liked York every time I’ve watched them or played against them.

“They play attractive football and they’re tough defensively. They’ve also got terrific fitness levels – Mark Helme (strength and conditioning coach) is doing a great job.

“They’re not a massive team but they’re very fit and have good athletes, whereas our fitness levels I think are terrible at the minute and is something we need to improve.”

Currently, the next favourites to go up with Toronto are second-placed Whitehaven, whom York host in a potential cracker on Sunday, and third-placed Barrow, who have beaten the Knights twice this season, comfortably in the league and controversially in the Challenge Cup.

But Haven only pipped Hunslet by a point at the end of April while the Raiders were pegged back in a draw with Doncaster on Sunday having been fortunate to beat the Parksiders 28-20 at home a week earlier in Thornton’s first game in charge.

Thornton - who was replaced at York by his number two Ford at the end of 2014 despite being named Championship One Coach of the Year after leading the Knights to the League Leaders Shield - said of his new charges: “We ran Barrow very close last week and were unlucky not to win.

“There was a crucial decision with six minutes to go and we had a man sent off.

“They’d taken a penalty to equalise then another to go in front and, with us down a man, they got a last-minute try to seal it. But we matched them for large periods.

“That’s what makes this performance (against York) more disappointing. It was a different Hunslet compared to the previous week. But hats off to York.”