JAMES FORD hailed York City Knights’ clinical display at Swinton Lions and stated that the first-half performing was “the best I’ve seen us play for a long, long time.”

York ran in 11 tries in total to finish as 64-16 winners at Heywood Road, thus securing their first Betfred Championship victory of the year.

The Knights scored six tries inside the first half hour to take the game well beyond Swinton early on.

And Ford was full of praise for the dominant showing his side served up in that first 40 minutes.

“I’m very, very pleased with the first half and I thought that was the best I’ve seen us play for a long, time time,” he said.

“The intensity at which we carried, the quality of our support efforts, the intelligence of our ball movement and the composure to build pressure.

“We were at 95 per cent completion (of sets) in the first half. But it wasn’t just completion for the sake of completion, it was completion with shape and ball movement.

“We asked them a load of questions and we were really good.

“I felt we were physically dominant. I felt that we were in control and then it’s easy to get untidy and push passes and cut corners defensively because the game is probably almost done, even in those early stages.

“I was really pleased with our mentality and the fact that we didn’t take those shortcuts and we didn’t lose our focus.”

The 64 points that York racked up was the most that they’ve managed to score in a league match since the famous 130-0 away win at West Wales back in 2018.

“It’s the closest we’ve got to the players executing what we want them to execute,” Ford added.

“I think a big part of that was some of the blokes we brought back into the middle giving us some shape around there.

“I thought both our half-backs were excellent. We didn’t chase it or push too many passes but we did ask subtle questions consistently and eventually the weight of having to make defensive decisions and repeat efforts proved too much for Swinton."