By Mally (19/06/02)
June 19 2002

The club have confirmed today that England U21 squad member Ian Clarke is to leave Leeds Tykes by mutual agreement. The young no. 8 is the 8th player from last season's squad to move on. Ian Clarke joined Leeds from Manchester for the 2000/01 season, and on his debut scored a try against Birmingham/Solihull.

Ian, who was 21 in April, has been described as an exceptional talent. A player to watch out for in the future, who has moved up from the England U19 to the U21 squad. Clarke is currently a member of the squad competing in the IRB World U21 Championships in South Africa.

When you consider that last season Ian he had little opportunity to show us what he can do, having come on as a replacement in just 6 matches (Bath x 2, Bristol, London Irish, Saracens and London Wasps), then his decision to leave Leeds Tykes is not so surprising.

If his playing career is to advance to the point where he can challenge the likes of Lewis Moody, Richard Hill and Joe Worseley for a place in the England back row then regular first team rugby is a must.

It is a shame that Tykes can not provide such an opportunity. As Leicester Tigers have proven, developing and retaining talented youngsters, and mixing them with experienced internationals is the way forward for long term Premiership survival and success.

It will be interesting to see which club snaps him up, and how his career develops, no doubt we will see him back at Headingley in the near future! So goodbye and good luck Ian!

Looking forwards to next season the structure of next season’s squad is starting to appear. In an article last month the Yorkshire Post said the Tykes squad for next season would drop to 30 players from 33. Going by my maths if we ended the season with a squad of 33, and we now have a total of 8 players who have either been released or have retired, leaving us with a core of 25 members of last season’s squad. Signing our flying Argentinian gave us 26…. So that leaves 4 new signings still to come….