Former Salford Red Devils ace headlines octet of departures from League 1 club
Crown Oil Arena, the home of Rochdale Hornets - Photo Credit: Rochdale Hornets
Former Salford Red Devils ace Daniel Spencer-Tonks is one of eight players to have seen his departure from League 1 outfit Rochdale Hornets confirmed.
Now 29, Spencer-Tonks’ story is a remarkable one, with one Super League appearance to his name – coming off the bench for Salford against Warrington in September 2022.
Five years prior, he’d been badly hurt in a road traffic accident in Hertfordshire, when the wing mirror of a lorry he was travelling in as a passenger clipped a hedge and smashed through his window, leaving paramedics worried the glass shards had severed an artery.
Having previously featured six times for Gloucestershire All Golds, that accident came in the midst of a four-year ban from rugby league for steroid use.
And just a year prior to his appearance in Super League for Salford, which came on the back of a stint playing for the Red Devils’ reserves, he’d been playing rugby union in the seventh tier for Cheltenham Tigers.
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Former Salford Red Devils ace headlines octet of departures from League 1 club
Fast forward to 2024, and Spencer-Tonks – who will turn 30 in January – made ten appearances for Rochdale having also donned a shirt for Hunslet and Swinton Lions in the season just gone.
Those ten games took his appearance tally for the Hornets up to 13 having also featured three times as a loanee in 2023.
Now though, with a total of 48 senior appearances in the game under his belt, he departs the Crown Oil Arena in search of a new opportunity, as confirmed by the League 1 club on Thursday morning.
Alongside his departure, Rochdale confirmed the exits of Aiden Roden, Ben Forster, Dean Roberts and Joe Hartley.
All four of those have already found new clubs with Roden joining fellow third tier side Midlands Hurricanes, Forster linking up with newly-promoted Championship outfit Oldham and both Roberts and Hartley moving to Hunslet in the second tier.
Elsewhere, the trio of Connor Ratcliffe, Jonny Openshaw and Matty Rudd are now all on the open market having seen their departures confirmed by Rochdale.
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