YORK City Knights boss James Ford says his side need to improve their consistency over 80 minutes if they are to continue toppling the top teams in the Betfred Championship.

The Knights beat League One side Newcastle Thunder 30-16 in their 1895 Cup second round tie at Bootham Crescent to comfortably move into the last eight of the new competition, but Ford reckoned it was a "mixed" performance.

Sitting third in the Championship table, they now host second-placed Toulouse Olympique in a potential humdinger in the league next Saturday and he reasoned increased "attention to detail" was needed if they were to avenge their narrow defeat in the south of France in April.

"We were really mixed. We did some good things but then we came up with sloppy errors," said Ford.

"I don't think we were far away from playing well. There were patches where we were good, but our concentration, our attention to detail cost us at key moments and at times gave Newcastle a leg-up.

"It stopped us going forward, stopped us scoring tries at times, and led to them scoring.

"Over the next 12 weeks we need to strive to get better in areas of our game, with our concentration and getting details right.

"When we do that, we're a good side. We've shown it before. Over the last couple of weeks, against Rochdale (in the league) and again here, at times we've probably taken our eye off the ball a little bit."

York missed a glorious chance when Kevin Brown, after brilliantly breaking through in centre-field, failed to give a scoring pass to Matty Marsh. They also kicked the ball dead a couple of times, missed a tackle on their own line to concede a try and got numbers wrong on the shirt side more than once.

"No disrespect to Newcastle because they're a fair side, but against Toulouse, or teams like Featherstone, Leigh, Toronto, you can't afford to do that.

"That's the message we need to get across to be better.

"When we get it right, we're a good side, but we need to get it right more.

"We are capable of beating anyone in this league - we've shown that - but we need to be nine or 10 out of 10 for the 80 minutes.

"When we get chances we need to take them. If not, it needs to be a magnificent piece of defensive play (from the opposition) and not because we've come up with something average or really poor. We did that a couple of times (against Newcastle) and you can't afford to continue doing that.

"We can focus on where we need to be better, and the players know we've got a great contest next weekend to show we've got better."

Ford reckoned the Tynesiders performed much better than in their League One loss to Hunslet last week but said he was never fearful of a shock defeat even after twice falling behind in the first half.

"I don't think we were ever going to lose but Newcastle made a real fist of making it a good contest," he said.

"They were pretty average against Hunslet but they were much improved here, both defensively and with their shape and how they moved the ball.

"They did some good things but I don't think we were in a situation where we thought we would lose. We were in a situation where we need to be tidier. We were feeding Newcastle.

"I was always confident we had enough."