Injury to York City Knights forward Joe Porter 'not looking good'

The York front rower was forced off in the first half of Sunday's 28-26 defeat to Newcastle Thunder with a knee injury and did not return to the field for the remainder of the game.

That injury compounded York's injury issues during the 80 minutes as Will Jubb suffered a suspected fracture to his arm in the opening 40 minutes, but soldiered on to complete the game.

"It doesn't look like it's good news around Joe," said head coach Ford. "He is obviously a very tough and competitive young man.

"I didn't quite see the incident so it would be unfair of me to comment on it. But he is in a tough spot at the minute is Joe.

"Jubby put his hand up to go back out there for the boys. He has a potential fracture to his arm. I couldn't force him to go back out there, and I wouldn't do, but he wanted to go back out there and try and help the boys get the win."

The Knights were without all of their available half-backs for the visit of Newcastle, with winger Kieran Dixon stepping in at full-back and providing an outlet as the main kicker, a role he has rarely featured in before.

"Kieran has played well pretty much every week for us and I thought that he had another strong game," added Ford.

"I've asked him to do stuff that he's probably not used to doing, but he was probably the best option out there for us.

"He put his hand up and went to work for us, so I think that he deserves a pat on the back for that."

Ford also reserved praise for his outside backs, including the stand-out Perry Whiteley, who returning to the Knights' starting 13 after a loan spell at Betfred Championship rivals Featherstone Rovers.

Ford said: "I thought Perry and Jason Bass were excellent. I thought that they ran good metres, I thought they got some good tempo for us and Perry finished his try off superbly.

"Perry has never not been rated at this club. We think a lot of him, and we think a lot of Bassy, and we know that he is capable of performances like that."