KNIGHTS star Trevor Krause, the new rugby league development coach in York, has praised the enthusiasm and ability of young players in the city.

The Aussie was speaking after 50 youngsters from three York primary schools took part in a tag rugby competition on Wednes-day, the first mini-tournament staged as part of the new RL development programme set up by the Knights and City of York Council.

The new community-based scheme, which was started just over a month ago following sponsorship from Guildford Construc-tion and Sportsmatch, has seen hundreds of schoolchildren receive coaching from Krause and the council's RL development officer Neil Gulliver, with these sessions being an extension of the work already done in schools by Tony Gargan and Mike Kilmartin.

Krause (pictured) said: "There was a pretty good standard shown in that competition. There was a lot of really good young kids taking part."

He added: "The kids are really keen. It seems they're loving it and want us to keep going back into the schools."

The three schools involved in Wednesday's comp were Our Lady's, Westfield and St Mary's. The games were evenly matched with some exciting flowing rugby, with the first seeing a see-saw encounter go in favour of Our Lady's against Westfield. The second game saw the more experienced Westfield team beat an enthusiastic side from St Mary's, while the third saw Our Lady's complete their overall triumph with victory over St Mary's, despite another eager display from the latter.

These three schools will be among those competing for the Marston Moor Cup on Sunday, June 22 at Heworth ARLC, which is part of the York International 9s Rugby League Festival.

Other primary schools to be involved in that include Bishopthorpe, St Oswald's, Tang Hall, Headlands, Osbaldwick and St Peter's.

Updated: 10:30 Saturday, June 14, 2003