YORK City Knights captain Chris Clarkson is making it a personal mission to turn his side's fortunes around.

Sunday's 37-12 defeat at Whitehaven was a tough one for the Knights, who have now recorded four straight Betfred Championship defeats.

A common thread running through these losses is the numbers of errors York have been committing both in and out of possession.

Such mistakes have not always led to defeats but in recent weeks, the Knights have been comprehensively punished by top-six contenders Bradford and Halifax - and now 12th-placed Whitehaven.

These errors have taken a toll on the Knights' mindset, Clarkson admits.

“It can be difficult but with the lads and the leaders we’ve got in the team, we’ve taken a long hard look at ourselves and had a good, honest chat," the dismayed skipper said after the Haven defeat.

“I hope we’ve come down to an answer that we need to take into next week.

“We have got the answers in the squad and I’m looking forward to seeing where that takes us.

“Being captain, you want to be in a winning team.

“It’s difficult. I’m going to take it personally and work hard to turn it around myself."

There followed a lengthy post-mortem in the away changing room after the final hooter at the Recreation Ground.

When Clarkson and head coach James Ford emerged, the disappointment in their voices was evident.

“It was difficult to take, if I’m honest," said Clarkson of the loss.

“With the group of individuals we’ve got, we can expect to come up here and put in a better performance than that.

“We all know how to prepare for a game like this.

“We know it’s going to be tough but we can expect to put in a good performance and do the little things correctly.

“But we just didn’t do that."

Another well documented difficulty the Knights have had to deal with this season is a lack of continuity in their line-ups.

Leigh Centurions loanee Jamie Ellis was deployed at half-back alongside Danny Washbrook at Whitehaven as he had been against Batley Bulldogs.

That is the Knights' seventh pairing of the season as a result of injuries in the pivotal position.

To add bulk to the squad, Ford has had to bring in loan players. Though they have brought talent and experience, the short-term signings cannot - by their very nature - match the mindset of players who have been at the club since the start of term, or longer.

“We spoke about (errors) in the changing room afterwards," Clarkson continued.

"The season for us has been a history of exactly the same thing from game one.

“We’ve had some loan players come in and they don’t understand that.

“The lads that have been there from the start and have seen it happen week in, week out, and they see it happen again, it’s psychological, their heads go down and it’s sort of ‘here we go again’.

“We’re struggling at the minute. We’re low on confidence.

“It’s up to us to get that confidence back and change that mindset and add the mental toughness to do the little things right and the repetitive things."