RISING rugby league star Sion Jones from Barry has spoken of his delight after he signed a deal which will keep him at Halifax RLFC until the end of 2020.

The former Ysgol Bro Morgannwg pupil and Welsh Student international, who is from Barry, is the latest graduate of the club's reserve grade.

He made his full debut in the victory over Rochdale Hornets at The Crown Oil Arena in February following a string of impressive performances for the second team last season.

The 20-year-old prop is delighted to have committed to Halifax on a long-term deal.

“It’s brilliant and more than I expected to be honest,” said Sion. “I feel I went well in pre-season and I’ve been rewarded for everything I’ve put in.

"My family are over the moon so I’m really happy to be staying here.”

“Martin (Gonzalez) is doing a great job bringing players through the reserves. I’ve learned a lot from him and honestly feel I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for Martin’s help and support so I’d like to thank him for that.”

Sion also revealed the biggest difference between reserve grade rugby and turning out for the first team squad.

He said: “I would say the professionalism is the thing that stands out the most. The talk on the pitch is more advanced and the intensity of the games is definitely higher than at reserve level."

And he is looking forward to working with Richard Marshall, a coach he holds in high regard.

“I’d say he’s the best coach I’ve had, to be honest. He always tells you what you’ve done well and what we need to work on in a direct way.

"I feel his straightforward approach is what makes him a great coach and I’m looking forward to working under Rich and progressing my career here at Halifax.”

Fax dead coach Marshall is pleased the young Welsh forward has committed his future to the club.

“We recognised that he’s got some talent. He has still got lots of improvement and development in him and that’s our job to help him out with his rugby and his skills and his athleticism so we’ll get that done,” he said.

“We identified him as a potential first team player for us. What we didn’t want to happen was what occurred with Nick Rawsthorne. I think we’ve learned from our mistakes whereby we didn’t tie Nick up in time and Hull FC came in for him.

"We didn’t want that to happen. Also, we can see he enjoys it here at Halifax. He was very keen and wanted to stay and sign a long-term deal. It’ll be based on him playing in and around the first team.”

“He’s a dedicated young man, as are a lot of his peers in that team. It’s like anything, if you put the work in you get your rewards and we’ve rewarded Sion with a decent contract.

"I’m hopeful that others will follow. We’ve got most of them signed up now, certainly for this season and we’ve identified a couple for the following season. But we felt we needed to reward Sion as well for his performances in the first team.”

And while the talented youngster clearly has some ability, Marshall is still adamant he can improve further.

“He doesn’t look like he can’t play in the first team. His game understanding needs to improve. He’s from a rugby union background, he’s not played an awful lot of rugby league.

"He’s a late developer to the sport so his game awareness; where he needs to be at certain times in the game, he needs to knuckle down on that.

“He needs to ask questions, he needs to speak to myself and Simon and Scott and all the experienced players and get as much knowledge as he can about rugby league in the Championship.

“Physically, he’s there. There’s not a lot more we can do with him physically. Skill wise, he needs to improve his skills; we’re big on catch, pass, carry here and he needs to improve in that area which will make him an all-round better player and the way we played in the front row, we like our front rowers like Jacob (Fairbank) and our middle players to be able to play like Simon Grix.

"He needs to pick that up as well but he’ll get the chance to do that here at Halifax.”