Super League 2014: Castleford Tigers complete clean sweep of annual awards as Daryl Clark named Man of Steel

Clark also picked up the Young Player of the Year while Tigers head coach Daryl Powell picks up Coach of the Year gong

Ian Laybourn
Thursday 09 October 2014 09:38 BST
Comments
Daryl Clark of the Castleford Tigers
Daryl Clark of the Castleford Tigers

Castleford swept the board at the Super League Man of Steel awards in Manchester on Wednesday night, atoning for their near-misses on the pitch in 2014.

The Tigers lost in the Challenge Cup final at Wembley and narrowly missed out on finishing top of the league for the first time in their 88-year history.

However, the club's best-ever Super League season was recognised at a gala dinner at Old Trafford cricket ground where hooker Daryl Clark was named Steve Prescott Man of Steel and Young Player of the Year while Daryl Powell was named Coach of the Year.

Clark, whose scintillating form has earned him a place in the England squad for the 2014 Four Nations Series, is only the third player in the 37-year history of the Man of Steel awards to claim both individual titles.

The 21-year-old, who is moving to Warrington in 2015, beat off competition from two former Man of Steel winners, Jamie Peacock (Leeds) and James Roby (St Helens), as well as Warrington's England prop Chris Hill to scoop the highly-prestigious award, which is given to the player judged to have made the biggest impact on the season.

"I'd have been happy with just the young player," he said. "I don't think I could have complained if it had gone to any of the other three nominees. They've all had great seasons.

"I'm pretty speechless really. I didn't expect to come here tonight and win both awards. It was a pretty amazing moment for me."

He was chosen after the results of a poll of every Super League player went in front of a specially-convened five-strong panel featuring a former Man of Steel and representatives from the players' union and the media.

The award has been renamed in memory of Steve Prescott, one of rugby league's most respected players who passed away 11 months ago after a long and courageous battle against a rare form of stomach cancer.

Roby received the hit-man award after making 1,054 tackles in Super League this year and Warrington full-back Matty Russell was the top metre maker with 3,546 metres.

Warrington winger Joel Monaghan received a prize for topping the try chart with 28 and St Helens goalkicker Luke Walsh was named top gun after enjoying a success rate of 78.57 per cent with the boot.

Seven players were presented with awards to mark their retirement from Super League with more than 200 appearances.

They were Matt Diskin (Bradford), Jon Clarke (Widnes), Richard Horne (Hull), David Hodgson (Hull KR), Willie Manu (St Helens), Martin Gleeson (Salford) and Francis Meli (Salford).

Widnes were named club of the year and a foundation award went to Warrington while the annual Mike Gregory Spirit of RL Award was presented to Terry Flanagan, the former Oldham and Great Britain forward who has played a leading role in the foundation of the sport's charity Rugby League Cares.

PA

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in