JUST what did head coach Andrew Henderson say to his team at half time?

That’s the question on everybody’s lips as the Knights delivered a stunning second-half performance to turn their Betfred Challenge Cup Sixth Round tie on its head, sealing their progression into the competition’s Quarter Finals with a 36-12 triumph over London Broncos.

The Knights made a blistering start at a sun-soaked LNER Community Stadium as fit-again winger Olly Butterworth crossed the whitewash just 90 seconds into his competitive debut, but found themselves with a four-point deficit at half time after a poor defensive display.

However, York were a side transformed after the interval to score a further five unanswered tries, pegging London back into their own half throughout the final 40 minutes to seal a home tie against Leigh Leopards on the weekend of June 16-18.

It is the second time in as many weeks that the Knights have rewritten the script after the interval, but just what is said by Henderson at half time to inspire such a turnaround?

“The three things (that needed fixing) for me were that we needed to frontload our energy better defensively,” he said. “Those first three plays on their back five, I just thought that we weren’t dealing with their back five.

“We spoke about getting a defensive area against their back five, and the contact tackle management.

“The contact tackle management was point one. Get that right, and especially on that back five, because they’re really getting their sets off to a good start.

“We spoke about that, and we spoke about sharing the workload with the ball.

“I just thought that we were asking a hell of a lot of our middles. When we’re defending so much and our middles are still having to carry the ball as well, that then depletes their energy levels.

“We spoke about sharing the workload – back-rowers getting more carries, tight backs get in and do a bit more work and get that balance a little bit better, that’ll help us defensively.

“We’ve got some team targets there too which I don’t want to disclose, but we spoke about getting back into that so that we can put this team under pressure.

“I was confident that if we got field position, then we got opportunities, and we had the pace to unlock them, which we did.

“It’s a credit to the team. We addressed those few things, and they delivered on them in the second half.

“I did another thing as well – I got our middle unit boys in before they went out and gave them a few little things that I needed from them in the second half to help us.

“I thought that they did a great job and got out there, and we were a different animal in that second half."