TORONTO Wolfpack boss Brian McDermott hailed York City Knights' defensive effort as "one of the best displays I've seen for a long time" following the hard-fought Betfred Championship opener at Bootham Crescent.

McDermott's star-studded full-time team - his match-day 17 included six players who had competed in the NRL and nine in Super League - won 14-0, but they needed two late tries, one of which should have been disallowed for a forward pass, to seal victory against James Ford's battling part-timers.

McDermott, a four-time Super League-winning coach with Leeds Rhinos, told Wolfpack TV the fact it was low-scoring was more to do with both teams' defensive work rather than deficiencies in attack.

"We're going to get a lot out of that game. It had everything in it," said the former Great Britain international - whose team are odds-on title favourites and were expected by many to win at a canter, especially after their 48-12 victory at Bradford Bulls in their last run-out o pre-season.

"There are a couple of ways you could view this. I could tell you - and it would be wrong for me to do so - that we were off and that's why it was a contest. That's not the case.

"I didn't think we were off. I thought we had a real crack. We did some stuff with the ball - in not great conditions - which should probably mean we get one or two more tries or at least line breaks.

"But I've got to give York credit. Defensively I felt they were outstanding. It was one of the best displays I've seen for a long time.

"No matter what we did, whether we kept it tight or tried to challenge them out wide, they just kept putting their bodies in front and saving tries, with some absolute try-savers too.

"If there was any reason why that was 4-0 for large parts of that game it was to do with York's defence rather than our worst version of attack."

The Knights had few chances to score at the other end and McDermott duly lauded his own team's work without the ball too, especially when things weren't going their way with it. Any suggestion he had an expensive squad of showponies were thus dismissed.

"York just kept coming, and I thought our attitude towards their hard work was great as well," he reasoned.

"As soon as we give any less than a nine-out-of-10 effort, I'm sure they would have broken us down.

"That's why I look at our fellas in defence and I think, 'Yeah that's good that.'

"There's a bit to work on in offence - our kicking game was shocking for the first 25 minutes of the game and York's was nearly 10 out of 10.

"But I'm going to keep coming back to the hard work aspect of it and the attitude when things aren't going our way."