JAMES FORD has said that York City Knights have a "busy couple of weeks" ahead of them as they go about rebuilding their squad after a disappointing campaign in 2021.

York closed out their Betfred Championship season with a 32-22 victory over London Broncos at the LNER Community Stadium, meaning that the Knights finished ninth in the table, with nine wins and 11 defeats from their 20 league matches.

The game against London was largely marked as the final appearances for retiring quartet Tim Spears, Ryan Atkins, Danny Washbrook and James Green, while back-rower Sam Scott played for the last time as a York player, with a move to Bradford Bulls understood to be on the cards.

Given that the future of several other Knights players seems unclear at present, a transitional off-season is expected.

And as head coach Ford hopes to build a side capable of returning to the play-off places, he admits that significant changes will be made.

"There has to be," Ford replied, when asked if there will be a high turnover over players.

"We've got to replace the retiring players and there are some players that are moving on to other clubs because they probably want to move up in status in a squad.

"I would never lie to people and I couldn't promise they would definitely be a starting player so they've chosen to move on.

"We've got a busy couple of weeks in front of us. I want players in my mould, we're going back to that."

Despite a below-par season, Ford stressed that he would be drawn into making wholesale changes, with positive aspects still to be taken from this year.

He said: “Things haven’t quite gone to plan this year. We haven’t been miles away but we have been a bit off.

“We need to fill that ‘bit off’ in the off-season and we’ll work really hard to do that. But it’s certainly not baby out with the bathwater time because there’s a number of games we’ve lost by the skin of our teeth.

“And I can’t see any other team going through as many half-backs and hookers as we have this season.

“We’ve got to cop it on the chin and come back stronger, which I’m sure we will.”