JAMES FORD hailed the character shown by his injury-hit York City Knights in grinding out a 20-6 win at Bradford Bulls.

Both York and Bradford struggled to find their best attacking form, with the former leading 8-0 after 65 minutes of the low-scoring affair.

Tries from Brendan O’Hagan and Danny Kirmond took the game beyond Bradford, a feat made even more remarkable by the head injury the latter struggled with in the second half.

Added to that were the losses of Jacob Ogden and Masi Matongo through injury, yet the Knights were still able to record a seventh straight Betfred Championship victory.

Head coach Ford said: “I’m absolutely delighted to get two points and take them back to York and that was what we came for.

“I thought the effort coming from my players was absolutely sensational.

“We lost a bloke (Jacob Ogden) to concussion early on, we lost Kirmond to a HIA for 10 minutes and we lost Masi with a calf injury.

“We had a number reasons to find to lose the game but I felt we dealt with that adversity, we dealt with those setbacks and we dealt with a vast amount of decisions going against us.”