Chris Clarkson excited to captain York in their quest for Super League
Chris Clarkson says it is a great honour to captain York in their quest to gain promotion to Super League.
The 30-year-old forward takes over the captaincy role at the City Knights from Tim Spears.
A Super League Grand Final and World Club Challenge winner, Clarkson joined York ahead of the 2020 campaign and played six games for the club before the season was cut short due to the pandemic.
Clarkson said: “It is a great honour to be leading the team this year. I’m really excited to do it but I’m not on my own out there, we’ve got some great leaders in the team.
“I’ve got a lot of help and I’m just looking forward to directing the team in the right direction and leading from the front and with my actions.
“I can’t wait for this year to get started. We have an opposed session against Leeds and then we play Hull at the new stadium so I can’t tell you how excited I am for that.
“It has been a long year out but the lads have kept each other motivated throughout that time so it will be good to see how far we have come from last year with the new signings and different make-up of the squad this year. I can’t wait to get going.”
York coach James Ford paid tribute to Spears, who has made 77 appearances so far for the club since arriving from Featherstone in 2017.
Ford said: “Tim has been an absolutely fantastic leader for this club.
“I’m very comfortable in saying he has been the best captain at the Knights since I came and his impact has been enormous in training and how we play.
“Clarky has got some big shoes to fill but I wouldn’t have asked Clarky to do it if I didn’t have the confidence that he’d be able to do it.
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“Chris is a very good professional, he selects his words carefully and he genuinely means what he says and he leads by his actions.
“Clarky is very similar to Tim Spears in that he is an effort-based player and what I mean by that is Clarky will be the first player behind the ball, he’ll top the off-the-ball efforts in terms of support runs and resets. Defensively, he’s really solid and he wrestles efficiently.
“I just like the characteristics he has as a person. He is very honest and a team-first person and he has got plenty of drive about him.”
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