{"id":62401,"date":"2025-08-12T20:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T20:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/62401\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T20:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T20:22:07","slug":"super-league-forward-secures-2026-deal-with-championship-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/62401\/","title":{"rendered":"Super League forward secures 2026 deal with Championship club"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Championship\"\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

Ambitious Championship club York Knights have made another top-flight signing as they aim to build a squad capable of competing in Super League.<\/p>\n

Knights, who are top of the Championship<\/a> and on a 15-game winning run in all competitions, have recruited Josh Griffin from Wakefield Trinity on a deal for next season.<\/p>\n

Warrington Wolves prop Paul Vaughan will also join York for the 2026 campaign, when they hope to be playing in an expanded 14-team Super League.<\/p>\n

The move reunites Griffin with Knights coach Mark Applegarth who signed him for Trinity from Hull FC in 2023.<\/p>\n

Josh Griffin on signing for Championship York<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old back-rower \u2013 who has also played for Castleford Tigers and Salford Red Devils \u2013\u00a0 said: \u201cIt\u2019s a club I hold in high regard, with an ambitious owner, great facilities, loyal fans and in a great city.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time to be joining the club as they are top of the Championship table, winners of the 1895 Cup and one of the front runners to be promoted to Super League.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to being reunited with Mash [Applegarth]. I have known him a long time, even playing together many years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping to add to the current squad, both on and off the field, with my experience and knowledge and really playing my part on this next chapter in both my career and the Knights\u2019 journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the signing, Applegarth is delighted to have added an \u201cabsolutely great professional\u201d to his pack for next year.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI\u2019m really happy. He brings with him a wealth of experience. I remember when we were bringing him in at Wakefield, we knew he was going to help raise the standard and I think he\u2019ll do exactly the same at York.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s obviously at the back end of his career and wanting to move forward with a fledgling S and C [strength and conditioning] career as well, so hopefully we\u2019ll give him some opportunities there.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if we just focus on the rugby league, we\u2019re getting pound for pound an excellent Super League-quality player and I\u2019m looking forward to linking up with Josh again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ambitious Championship club York Knights have made another top-flight signing as they aim to build a squad capable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-62401","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\/62401","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=62401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}