County youth held by expert gives tribute (8)
I believe the answer is:
accolade
'tribute' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'county youth held by expert' is the wordplay.
'county' becomes 'co'.
'youth' becomes 'lad' (I've seen this before).
'held by' is an insertion indicator.
'expert' becomes 'ace' (ace is a kind of expert**).
'co'+'lad'='colad'
'colad' put inside 'ace' is 'ACCOLADE'.
'gives' is the link.
(Other definitions for accolade that I've seen before include "Praise publicly given" , "Praise, honour" , "Praise, acclaim" , "High praise" , "Praise, or touch on shoulder to confer knighthood" .)