{"id":197262,"date":"2025-10-13T14:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T14:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/197262\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T14:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T14:42:11","slug":"super-league-hopefuls-sign-former-england-centre-following-castleford-tigers-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/197262\/","title":{"rendered":"Super League hopefuls sign former England centre following Castleford Tigers release"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img width=\"2400\" height=\"1600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/OHO5128.jpg\" class=\"attachment- size- wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>A former England centre has joined ambitious York Knights in a major coup for the Super League hopefuls.<\/p>\n<p>Sam Wood, 28, spent the past two seasons at Castleford Tigers and was their captain for a spell earlier this year, after previously playing in Super League\u00a0 for Huddersfield Giants and Hull KR.<\/p>\n<p>He earned an England cap against France in 2024, but was<a href=\"https:\/\/www.seriousaboutrl.com\/rugby-league-news-castleford-tigers-confirm-immediate-release-of-former-captain-108848\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> released by Tigers last month with a year remaining on his contract<\/a>. In total, he featured 33 times for Castleford, scoring six tries.<\/p>\n<p>York will learn this week if their bid to join Super League in 2026 has been successful. They won this year\u2019s 1895 and topped the Championship table, but a 20-game winning streak ended when they were beaten by Toulouse Olympique in the Grand Final.<\/p>\n<p>Serious About Rugby League has launched a brand new podcast which can be watched in full on our <a class=\"in-cell-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BqtbnfdwINA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">YouTube channel here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>York Knights sign former Super League captain Sam Wood<\/p>\n<p>Knights coach Mark Applegarth said: \u201cI\u2019m delighted to get a player of that calibre. He\u2019ll add some real quality and depth to the centre positions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of the young lads can learn from him and he\u2019ll add that experience into our team. He was an England international only a couple of years ago so it\u2019s our job to help him unlock that form again and get his confidence back to where he\u2019s used to it being.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wood added: \u201cI\u2019m really excited about joining such a great bunch of people on and off the field. It\u2019s a team that had such a brilliant season [this] year and is ambitious and passionate about getting better and progressing as a club. I can\u2019t wait to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u270d\ud83c\udffd \ud835\udc7e\ud835\udc76\ud835\udc76\ud835\udc6b \ud835\udc69\ud835\udc6c\ud835\udc6a\ud835\udc76\ud835\udc74\ud835\udc6c\ud835\udc7a \ud835\udc68 \ud835\udc72\ud835\udc75\ud835\udc70\ud835\udc6e\ud835\udc6f\ud835\udc7b<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve secured former England international, Sam Wood for 2026, thanks to the support of Squad Builder \u2694\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>The 28-year old centre has spent the last two years at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CTRLFC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@CTRLFC<\/a>, where he was named club captain in his first season.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udde3\ufe0f Head\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/w9oTRH8bsu\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/w9oTRH8bsu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 York RLFC Knights (@YorkRLFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/YorkRLFC\/status\/1977705944365637957?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">October 13, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1759084633_634_srl-logo.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former England centre has joined ambitious York Knights in a major coup for the Super League hopefuls.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-197262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}