Tonks has plenty of experience and Rams' coach Warren Jowitt is delighted with his signing. He said: "He is a good, experienced professional and has an excellent attitude towards training. He has kept himself in great shape and is good at pushing the other players."
The Rams start official pre-season training next Monday but have been turning up in groups this week to have strength and fitness tests. Apparently Tonks was one to have made a big impression on the other members of the squad.
Jowitt explained: "We shall get a good idea where the fitness levels of the individual players are and we shall check them every five weeks. There will be extra training for any lads who are under-achieving. The days of players turning up overweight and scarcely able to run round the field are long gone."
One of the players to have stood out in the tests is Andrew Bostock. Jowitt remarked: "He has obviously been training hard on his own during the break and he has been immense, his strength is unbelievable. Another to have shown up well in the strength part is Liam Crawley, who has looked very good."
Jowitt, no slouch himself when it comes to strength and fitness, has been working individually with young prop Keegan Hirst, who will be seeking to make up for lost time, having had a year away from the Rams when he went to Hunslet last season.
Jowitt said: "Keegan is 20 years old and a monster of a lad at 6ft 4in and over 18 stone but he probably needs some driving on after his year away didn't go all that well in the second half of the season. He has great potential and if he knuckles down, will be playing regularly. Nobody enjoys stopping big lads like him time and again.
"We have Keegan, James Walker and Ian Tonks to keep bringing into the game. They might not always make lots of yardage but they are hard to put down and invariably take three or four defenders to stop them and that tires out opponents. They do a valuable job.
"I am really looking forward to the start of training which at first will involve skills work and weights. It's also a matter of getting the lads to bond, when they are at the club you want them all to be mates, you need to develop a team ethos and that's why we are in a few weeks early."
The Rams' boss also feels that next month's weekend trip to an army camp will help bring the players together. He added: "We shall work hard, have team drills under the guidance of instructors and there should be plenty of laughs."
Winger Bryn Powell pulled out of the Welsh squad meeting England at Doncaster tonight because of work commitments.
The Rams are watching with interest the team building of such Division Two rivals as Oldham, Rochdale and York, while Swinton raised a few eyebrows when they signed influential stand-off Graham Holroyd from Halifax.