YORK City Knights boss Mick Cook is eyeing a glorious Powergen Challenge Cup run and as such wants to avoid Super League opposition in tomorrow's night's fifth-round draw.

The Knights booked their place in the hat with a thrilling 20-18 win at Swinton Lions yesterday, coming back from 18-10 down with nine minutes to go.

A top-flight draw would give the club a bumper pay day but would also mean likely defeat and Cook wanted to go further in the competition.

"If we can get somebody from our own division or National League Two, I will be pretty happy," he said.

"If it's a Super League team we will take it on the chin, go along and prepare for those.

"It's a great competition and everybody loves it, and it's all about the luck of the draw. Hopefully we will get a nice one."

Half-back Scott Rhodes was the hero with the match-winning solo try to add to his earlier touchdown.

Rhodes had told the Press in the build-up to the game that he had been pleased with his form, though he, along with the rest of the team, had been guilty of silly mistakes. But he won the praise of his coach after his man-of-the-match performance.

"He was pretty good," said Cook. "His kicking game was pretty good and there were a lot of carries and darting runs, looking for a few openings.

"He had a good all-round game and he had a few knocks on the way so he had to tough it out."

Cook reckoned the match, and the hardiness his side had to display in the mud-caked conditions, set them up well for the start of the NL1 campaign next week, away to full-timers Widnes, who enjoyed a shock defeat of Super League side Castleford.

"It was a big win for us," he said. "They were tough conditions and we have toughed it out."

Swinton are an NL2 team but are among the favourites for promotion and beat NL1 big-guns Leigh in the Northern Rail Cup last week.

"Swinton had a great win last week in similar conditions and our win was very hard-earned," said Cook.

"It was a credit to both teams. The pitch deteriorated badly but both sets of players worked hard to make a quality game out of it.

"A few errors crept in but you would expect that with the ball being like a bar of soap.

"In the first half I thought we controlled the game quite well. We slipped off at the start of the second half and we had to win the game at the back end but we're in the next round."

Cook revealed Neil Law, who got another of York's four tries, played despite missing training with a stomach bug. He was passed fit at the weekend, meaning Lee Lingard was kept back despite recovering from his hand injury. Lingard or on-loan Peter Fox might come in next week for winger Paul Clarke, who suffered concussion for the second time in a few weeks.

Updated: 10:18 Monday, April 03, 2006