A FURIOUS Dave Woods ripped into his York City Knights charges branding their performance in a 34-12 Championship loss at Barrow as “pathetic”.

Nathan Freer and Brett Waller came in for particular treatment following the limp display at Craven Park but Woods said most of his team had something “they need to look at”.

“We had blokes that I don’t think even got on the bus, let alone off it,” Wood railed. “It was very disappointing and very poor – not good enough for playing any sort of level of rugby league.”

The Knights’ head coach was enraged by his team’s application, arguing the difference between the two sides came down to a matter of heart.

“They had enthusiasm, we had nothing,” he added. “They had line speed, we had nothing. You can’t coach that. That’s got to come from within. We had blokes there that didn’t do it.

“You look at the way Nathan Freer played last week against a Super League team – he was outstanding – and then he comes and turns in rubbish like that.

“We’ve got blokes that can do it. We know they can do it. It’s about doing it consistently and doing it every week. You can’t just turn up against Super League side and play well and then expect to do the job.

“The last couple of weeks we have had some decent results but you have to continue it. You can’t just go through the motions. I’m not singling out Nath on his own.

“You have got Brett Waller – the size of him – and he is jogging onto a football rather than carrying it hard and tough. All of them have got something they need to look at.”

Having rested a series of players against Hull KR, including assistant coach Chris Thorman, on the premise the Championship was more important than a one-off Challenge Cup tie, Woods was left wondering if he had made the right decision.

He said: “You rest blokes because they have been doing a good job and you think you are looking after them and doing the right thing. Then they repay you with that sort of rubbish.

“I said to them ‘Tom Bush is the only bloke who can stand there and stick his hand up and say he had a dig’. To be fair, Jack Lee did a pretty decent job.

“We work on things in training that we need to do in games and we are just aren’t doing them out on the field. It’s just pathetic as far as I am concerned from most of the players.”

He continued: “We had an opportunity to get three points and push further up the ladder. I am not really happy at all. It was very, very poor.

“You can be sure that some of the blokes that played yesterday (in the reserves) will have to back up Thursday as well because there will be a few blokes that played (against Barrow) that definitely won’t be playing that’s for sure.”