Giants sign Tony Tonks

GIANTS SIGN TONY TONKS

Huddersfield Giants have signed Prop Forward Tony Tonks on a one year deal from Featherstone Rovers.

The 26 year old former Wakefield and Bradford Academy man has been in outstanding form for the Co-Operative Championship winners and played his final game for them in yesterdays 40-4 victory over Sheffield Eagles.

Tonks is delighted to be signing for the Giants and planning to take the opportunity of making the step up to the Super League with both hands;

"I've got the chance to prove I'm now ready to play at Super League level, which is something I'm looking forward to doing. It's just a case of taking my chance and showing everyone at the club what I can do. It's up to me, nobody else. That's a challenge that excites me, and I believe that the Giants are the perfect club to help to bring the best out of me and show I've now developed into a Super League player.

"I've seen the way the coaching staff here have helped develop the young players who they take on, and Larne Patrick is a prime example to me. I was at the Bradford Academy the same time as Larne, and he was always a player with a tremendous amount of ability. But he's now an outstanding player and that's because of the way he's developed during his time at Huddersfield. Hopefully, it'll be a similar story for me.

"I know I've been given a fantastic opportunity to become a professional player for, hopefully, a number of years to come. It's now up to me to make the most of this opportunity as quickly as possible."

Huddersfield Giants Head Coach Nathan Brown is pleased to add Tonks to his squad for the 2012 season;

"It's a really good opportunity for Tony, he had a lengthy stint as a younger player at Bradford Bulls and they had plenty of International players in his way at the time, he never quite managed to get an opportunity in Super League at that stage. He's filtered back into the Championship and has been a good player at Featherstone for a while now. We have watched tapes of him from throughout the year and he has proved himself to be one of the best front-rowers at that level.

"He's a hungry player and looking forward to this opportunity, a lot of front rowers do blossom later on in their careers and at 26 he is still relatively young as well as keen to get better. He has great leg speed and a nice build, with some good dedication in training we will see how it goes. His opportunity will come at some stage if he puts in the right amount of hard work in, from talking to him and the feedback we have had about him - he will have a really good dig. If he can have a great pre-season and a little bit of luck with injuries then he will earn the opportunity to show what he can do at a higher level."