YORK City Knights head coach James Ford has hailed the leadership of Jordan Baldwinson, stating that there is “a future captain” in the forward.

The prop forward has featured in all six of York’s games thus far this season and was particularly impressive in the Knights’ 70-12 Coral Challenge Cup victory over Rochdale Hornets in their last outing.

Baldwinson has featured for eight clubs in his career across several spells permanently, on loan and on dual registration, though the 25-year-old now appears to be settled in his career at York having joined permanently midway through last season.

“I’m really really pleased with what Jordan’s doing both on and off the field,” said Ford.

“He’s emerged as a leader at the club and he’s driving a lot of stuff with the forwards, (in) the extras before training (and) he’s contributing much more in our team meetings.

“I was watching him before the game (and) there’s a future captain in Jordan Baldwinson.

“I couldn’t be more pleased with the progress that he’s made in the last 12 months.”

Ford also paid tribute to York's current skipper, Tim Spears, who reached 400 career games against Rochdale.

“To play 400 games of a sport that is this tough is not easy," said Ford.

“He’s incredibly professional, he upholds the highest standards on and off the field.

“To young people out there reading this, there’s a definite correlation there between Tim’s professionalism and his attitude towards the little things in around the game, and the amount of appearances that he’s made.

“It was great for him to get that respect from the players of both sides to acknowledge the 400 appearances.

“He’s humble, hard-working and team-first. And that’s us as a club. All of the players at the club put the team first and we wouldn’t have them here if they didn’t. Tim epitomises what we’re about.”

Of his final minute conversion effort, which was missed, Ford said: “Connor Robinson was worried because if that had have gone over, Tim would have been taking over the kicks."