Boss Dave Woods was left “pulling his hair out” as the woes mounted for York City Knights on the back of a record defeat.

The Knights lost organiser-in-chief Chris Thorman to a potentially serious groin problem just before half-time of their 76-12 hammering at Widnes yesterday, and they also saw Lee Waterman (head), Jack Stearman (knee) and Matt Barron (knee) depart with injuries.

The result was the biggest league defeat in the Knights’ nine-year history, as well as the most points conceded in any game, usurping the 74-4 Challenge Cup loss to Huddersfield in 2007, and it left them second-bottom of the Co-operative Championship stuck on two points from four games.

Woods said: “It was poor again with one-on-one tackles missed, lost balls and poor contact.

“You keep pulling your hair out – what else can you do.”

One bright spot for York was the introduction as a second-half substitute of hooker Kris Brining – the youngest player in the Knights’ nine-year history – after he was promoted from 18th man due to the late withdrawal through illness of Dave Sutton.

Scholarship graduate Brining, aged 17 years and 148 days, replaced Ed Smith in the record books. Smith was 17 years and 236 days on his competitive debut last season, while Tom Lineham was aged 17 years and 301 days when he made his bow in 2009.

Woods praised Brining’s display – but aired concerns that his squad was too young.

The average age of the line-up in the last few games has been about 22-and-a-half, and that average came down yesterday with Brining on the pitch and 30-year-old Thorman off it.

“The injuries didn’t help but blokes have to be tough. It’s a tough sport,” said Woods.

“We competed for the first ten or 15 minutes but then they had four sets of six and scored three times on the bounce – and they all came from our errors.

“A missed tackle is compounded by another one, and you can’t do that. We speak about intensity at this level but we haven’t got it. We’re too young. We need more experience in there.”

Of Brining, the Aussie said: “It wasn’t an easy day but I thought he was good. He made a couple of the older fellas look stupid with the way he defended. If we had them all like that maybe we would be all right. There were some other good individual performances but there’s not too many of them. Everyone needs to be good.”

The match came three days after Widnes were granted a Super League licence for 2012 onwards, but the Knights did not catch them with a party hangover.

Woods said: “We knew it was going to be difficult. They’ve got blokes wanting to get Super League contracts and we knew they would play well, especially after two beatings. But we just didn’t show up.”

York now have two blank weekends before a return match at home to arch-rivals Hunslet on Good Friday, when Ryan Esders should return from his four-match ban while James Haynes and maybe Brett Waller could be back in contention after injury and Ian Bell might be okay after illness.

Woods added: “It will be a completely different side.”