Castleford Tigers’ Luke Gale has been presented with the All-Party Parliamentary Rugby League Group’s Super League player of the year award for 2017.
The award is made annually by MPs and Peers to the player that they feel performed consistently at the highest level throughout the course of the Super League season.
Gale was instrumental for Castleford in 2017, a season that saw the club win the League Leaders’ Shield for the first time in the Super League era, and end their 91-year wait for a top-flight title. After returning to playing just two weeks after an emergency appendix operation, he was ultimately named Steve Prescott MBE Man of Steel.
The presentation was made at Castleford’s first home game of the season, against Widnes on Sunday. After making the presentation, Castleford MP Yvette Cooper said: “Luke was the only possible winner after his brilliant performances last season. So it was a real honour to present him with the award after the match on Sunday.
“His skill and cool determination under pressure, those nail biting performances that kept us all on the edge of our seats, and his incredible return so soon after surgery captured the spirit of not just the Cas Tigers, but of the whole town.
It was a tight match this weekend in the bitter wind but Cas Tigers secured the right result in the end which was well deserved.”
All-Party Parliamentary Rugby League Group Chair and Member of Parliament for Bradford South, Judith Cummins MP, added: “Luke was a worthy winner of the Parliamentary Rugby League Group’s 2017 Super League Player of the Year award, for his role in a great season for Castleford Tigers. I wish all clubs well for 2018, in what is set to be another fantastic season of rugby league.”