"I'VE never really thought about it, to be honest. I'm putting my energies into York."

So said James Ford when asked if, by any chance, his ears had pricked up when hearing earlier this week of the vacancy at Featherstone Rovers, his home-town club.

It's fair to say the 32-year-old wouldn't really be in the frame at this stage given his rookie status and Rovers' Super League aspirations, even if he is a local boy and even if he has won plaudits for the way he's guided a young Knights side through considerable off-field turbulence into play-off reckoning in League One.

However, it was perhaps notable that he didn't put it anywhere near the frame either, if only because it emphasised his commitment to the Minster city club.

"I've got a three-year contract at York and have no intentions of leaving," he said.

"I'm also sure Featherstone would be looking at coaches with a more established and proven track record than I've got."

Of further note was the way the 32-year-old tackled the question of whether he might be interested one day in the future of returning to Post Office Road, where he was once a player.

"Featherstone are a fantastic rugby league club with enormous potential, just like York," he said.

"I've not really thought any further ahead than my contract at York. We have aims to achieve and I haven't got time to think further ahead than that.

"If you look beyond that, things will creep up on you and bite you on the backside. I've not given it any thought."

Former Championship champions Featherstone announced they had parted company with head coach Andy Hay on Monday, and, by Monday night, several names were in the frame.

The favourite for the job by midweek was former Huddersfield and Crusaders boss Jon Sharp and he was duly announced their new head coach yesterday.

Sharp played for Featherstone in 1996-97 and coached their academy in 1998. He also went on to be an assistant coach with Great Britain and has spent the last three years as match officials coach with the Rugby Football League.

FORMER Knights favourite Sam Scott is about to reach a personal milestone.

The second-row enforcer, who was The Press Player of the Year in his one season at Huntington Stadium in 2013, needs one appearance to reach 100 for his career.

Scott has played 42 games for Batley since 2014, having turned out 22 times for York and, before that, 35 times in two years at Sheffield, where he won the Championship title.

TALKING of a century, Ben Dent's two goals in the defeat at Oldham last week took him to 100 points for the season. He sits sixth in the League One point-scoring charts, which are led by Oldham's Lewis Palfrey with 135.

It is worth noting that Matt Bradley, whose Gloucestershire All Golds outfit visit York this evening, lies third in the leaderboard, with 116 points.

That amounts to more than a third of the 342 points scored by his side this campaign as they sit in the lower echelons of the table.

The Italy international half-back has notched 48 goals and five tries, compared to Dent's 36 goals and seven tries.

JAMES FORD and his Knights squad have been out and about with community club junior teams again.

Following on from their training session with New Earswick All Blacks under-14s a couple of weeks ago, they had a similar run-out with York Acorn U14s this week following a first-team session at Acorn's Thanet Road ground (which is one of their training venues while negotiations about getting into the community stadium plan continue).

Said Ford: "We had a session ourselves looking at areas we could fix up and we then played some small-sided games with the Acorn lads, similar to what we did with the All Blacks.

"My boys enjoyed it and I hope the Acorn lads did too. There were some really good performances from the young fellas - there's some talent down there and the coaches are obviously doing a fantastic job."

By the way, the All Blacks U14s have since secured the Yorkshire Junior League division four title with three games to spare.

Their session with Ford's troops had been arranged through Knights skipper Pat Smith, whom the team sponsor, and who was quick to congratulate them on their achievement. See Page 38 for the junior rugby league round-up.