YORK City Knights coach Mick Cook reckons there is plenty of points in his outside backs after watching new centre Ian Brown mark his first appearance for the club with a hat-trick.

Another new signing, winger Johnny Waldron, also bagged a quick-fire double late on as the Knights beat a team made up primarily of York Old Boys' in an entertaining testimonial match in aid of retired ace Mark Cain.

Cook - who also gave a debut to Kyle Palmer after signing the local youngster on late in the week - read little into the result given the friendly nature of the game, but was pleased with the finishing prowess shown by the new duo.

"I thought Ian looked strong in contact, both in offence and defence, and he's pretty focussed," said the coach.

"Johnny Waldron looked sharp and did some good work from dummy-half and in kick returns.

"He's definitely quick, and we've got the likes of Alex Godfrey, Lee Mapals, Johnny, George Rayner - they're all pretty quick. George scored a great try, which was ruled out for a bit of crossing or something.

"I think we'll score some points when things click and we get a full-strength squad together. There's a lot of football in this team, though I was a bit disappointed we didn't play enough yesterday."

Palmer, 22, is a centre or back-row who, along with Waldron and scrum-half Andy Gargan, is another to join from amateurs York Acorn.

Cook added: "He's only trained once with us but he did okay.

"He's got to prove his fitness but he showed a few good signs and it will be good for his development.

"He's come here to challenge for a first-team spot, like they all have, and he's now got to move himself into that position. He knows it's a challenge but it will be good for him."

He added: "The game served a purpose and that was to be of benefit to Mark Cain.

"I thought we could have played a bit more football, but there were a lot of changes and it affected the fluency, but I'm not going to look into it too much.

"We're now looking forward to the Castleford game (a friendly on January 26).

"We've got some work to do before then and it will be a good test for us."

Cook had a word of praise for Cain's Select team, which featured a lot of former professionals supplemented by a few local amateurs.

"A lot of Cainy's team did really well," said Cook.

"There's a lot of experience in there and they played some pretty good football as well.

"But the likes of Craig Forsyth and Lee Jackson haven't been out of the game that long and you expect quality from them."