YORK City Knights have taken former Heworth ARLFC junior prop forward, Ben Barnard, on trial.

The 19-year-old will feature in James Ford’s 21-man squad for his side’s upcoming match against Whitehaven in the Betfred Championship.

“Ben is a young middle who has come through at Heworth,” said Ford.

“He’s only nineteen but has played in their first team and he’s come through what is a really good club and Ben has played at a good standard in terms of competition.

“We feel that he has some potential and we’ve taken him on trial to have a really good look at him.

“We are trying to give him an insight into how we do things and later down the track we will know a little bit more about one another and see where we go from there.

“I’m really looking forward to working with another talented young man from the area.

“It highlights the fact that we are looking in York first for players to bolster the squad and help us progress to where we want to get to.”

Barnard is the fifth former Heworth player to join York, after Myles Harrison, AJ Towse, Toby Warren and Bradley Ward.

Whitehaven will be looking to complete the season double over York, having beaten them 38-12 earlier in the campaign when the two sides faced each other at the Recreation Ground.