YORK City Knights boss James Ford says that his side must develop a killer instinct as they enter the final push for a spot in the Betfred Championship play-offs.

Ford’s side claimed a 24-16 victory away to Barrow Raiders to keep themselves in second place in the table with just four league matches remaining.

York led 24-4 after an hour’s action at Craven Park, but Barrow fought back to cut the deficit to just eight points.

The Knights coach insists that his squad need to develop the ability to kill off matches in the future, particularly in their testing encounter at Toronto Wolfpack tomorrow afternoon (6pm).

“It’s about reducing our try to chance ratio and getting better with our execution,” said Ford.

“A lot of that comes down to our concentration.

“Killing games off when we’re in winning positions is something that we need to improve upon.

“I thought against Barrow we looked like a side that hadn’t played the week before, which was the case for both sides.

“But, for us, particularly at this stage of the season, results are everything and thankfully we managed to get the two points in the end.

“Against Barrow we were pleased to get the win because historically for ourselves, it’s a really tough place to go and they’ve beaten us a few times up there.

“It was a game that could have got away from us. In regards to our performance, I thought it was nearly a good one.

“We did well to break the Barrow line a couple of times and we got ourselves in positions to kill the game. But perhaps a lack of concentration meant that we let them back into the game.

"Things like kick-off restarts not being taken and not taking scoring opportunities when they came.

“We managed to force repeat sets but couldn’t capitalise on those.

“But, with that said, I don’t want to take anything away from the performance of Barrow, they are a dangerous side.”