THE rotating door at Huntington Stadium could begin to revolve after head coach Dave Woods confirmed York City Knights had considered changes to the squad.

Rumours prior to yesterday’s defeat at Featherstone suggested the Knights had sought to offload some players, either permanently or on loan to add to winger Dennis Tuffour’s temporary switch to Hunslet.

No names have been made public and general manager Ian Wilson said no one had asked for a transfer and no clubs had been notified about player availability, but he added “nothing has been ruled out”, and Woods said freeing up squad places had been contemplated.

Said the Aussie: “We were looking at moving a couple of players on or out on loan so we can free up some positions and bring some players in. That was last week, but I don’t know what’s happening now.”

Woods would also not be drawn on discussing the club’s decision not to renew temporary deals for Castleford duo Nathan Massey and John Davies.

However, he did have fellow forwards Ben Jones, who has been out since mid-March, and Ryan Esders back from injury yesterday.

They had not been in the provisional squad but a late decision was taken to include them, and both came through unscathed.

Big Adam Howard, the dreadlocked former Peterlee Pumas amateur, had been set for a Championship bow but was instead 18th man.

Said Woods: “Ben had only done two sessions of contact work and it’s tough coming back in for a prop, especially when you’ve been out that long. But we thought we needed the experience and on Saturday we decided to change it.”

That decision seemed to be paying off as the Knights twice led and on 65 minutes trailed only 26-24 with a shock victory over title contenders Rovers a possibility.

However, the hosts then scored four late tries to seal a 44-24 win.

They scored nine in total to follow the eight York conceded against Leigh last week.

A disappointed Woods said: “At half-time we’re in the position to win the game, but we went away from everything we did in the first half. It was a poor second half.

“The worst thing is we didn’t even get a bonus point.

“They made us look stupid by beating us by 20 points. Defensively, we’re just not doing it.

“The first 40 minutes were great. We talked before the game about needing to stick together and work hard for each other.

“The players did that in the first half against the wind and slope.

“The game was there for us to win at half-time.

“Featherstone probably didn’t switch on at the start but we did everything right in the first 15 minutes and we got results from that.

“It’s then very disappointing to be beaten by 20 points and not get a bonus point.

“It was a very poor second half. We wanted to kick them to death but we didn’t do that. We gave them easy yards. We did not do what we wanted to do and did not play like we did in the first half.

“Featherstone are going to pick up and win that second half if we didn’t do things right.”

Next up for York are Widnes at Huntington Stadium on Sunday.

Asked whether the Knights could avenge April’s 76-12 mauling by the Super League-bound Vikings, Woods said: “They’re all winnable games but we’ve got to do the little things right. If you don’t, you get punished. We will be doing our best.

“If we play like we did in that first half for 80 minutes, not just 40 minutes, we can win the game.”