YORK City Knights Ladies may have lost again but coach Daryl North lauded the developing team’s “best performance by a country mile”.

The inexperienced Knights are still without a point at the foot of the Women’s Super League after losing 40-12 to Featherstone Rovers at Bootham Crescent.

But North, while admitting this elite tier is harder than the team had anticipated upon their promotion, hailed his players’ efforts and reckoned the game would have been much closer but for a stack of controversial calls going against them.

“It was our best performance of the season so far by a country mile,” said North.

“Every player dug in, there was effort and they played for each other.

“They didn’t moan when calls went against them and they kept playing. It was a very spirited performance.”

Featherstone built a healthy lead before York got on the scoreboard thanks to a solo try by standout player Kayleigh Waller.

The hosts’ second-half try was finished by Ellie Hendry, after she was fed by Mary Tiplady who had caught a deft off-the-cuff kick by prop Carly Hilton.

Waller, from Hull, plays rugby union at Loughborough University and this was only her second competitive game of league. Her potential was obvious in a player-of-the-match performance at centre.

“We’re very inexperienced to be fair, especially at this top level,” said North of his team.

“We weren’t quite ready for Super League but we’re getting more to grips with it. We competed for the most part. We went a few tries down, which is hard against a team of that standard, but for the rest of the game we could not fault the players’ effort at all.

“We had only one fit interchange for the last half hour as well but they kept going.”

Of the performance of York-based referee Scott Fernandez, North said: “I don’t like talking about officials but a few very bad calls stopped our fluency and also left us defending, defending, defending which drains energy.

“Featherstone were getting away with things and we were penalised for doing the same stuff. It all swung the balance their way a few times.

“I’m not saying we would have won the game but it would have been a lot closer, that’s for sure.”

He added: “We knew Super League was going to be tough but we maybe didn’t realise it would be this tough.

“The goal is to get better and we’re doing that. Our attack is getting better every week. Our defence has shied off a few times but we stuck in better this week.”