Our popular Back To My Roots feature continues, as Josh Griffin takes a trip down memory lane…
FC: Of the three brothers in your family, which one started playing rugby league first?
JG: None of us had really heard of rugby league before, but Darrell wanted to carry on playing during the off-season in union. He got signed up by London Broncos, and after a year he got picked up by Wakefield Trinity. My mum and dad sold the pub we owned in Oxford and we moved up to Wakefield after Darrell recommended it.
FC: So when did you start playing rugby league?
JG: I was still playing union at the time I moved up from Oxford, but my new school friends in Wakefield suggested that I switched over to league because I was quite quick and they thought I would suit league. Me and my mates all ended up playing for Stanley Rangers. I was at college in about 2007 or 2008 and John Kear, who was the Wakefield coach at the time, gave me a call to go down training after the team had picked up a lot of injuries. I had to skive college on the Thursday and Friday, I did team run on the Saturday morning and then ended up making my debut for Wakefield on the Sunday!
FC: Can you remember much from your debut?
JG: I think it was a Challenge Cup game on TV, actually. I came off the bench and played for ten minutes. Then the next morning I was back at college and I was walking around thinking I was the top dog. The best part of it was my teacher the next morning. He was a Wakefield fan and he let me get away with it!
FC: Talk us through the pathway from your debut onwards.
JG: I was at a lot of different clubs over the next few years after that. I was at Huddersfield, Batley on loan, back at Wakefield and then at Castleford. I had a pretty turbulent time in the first half of my career because I never really found anywhere to settle down for a decent period of time. Any club I was at wasn’t for much longer than a year, really. I was in and out of rugby league between 2012 and 2014 because I was playing union with Yorkshire Carnegie. But at one point I just wanted to get a league ball back in my hands and I gave John Kear a call. He was at Batley Bulldogs at the time, so I went down there and played a few games before Salford offered me a trial for a month in 2014.
FC: What was it like playing at Salford alongside your two brothers?
JG: It was a weird one because we’d never played at the same club before. That was a good point in my career because I was playing alongside them both and it gave me a pretty good feeling. Our dad died in 2015 and it was horrible to lose him. But all three of us brothers united whilst we were at Salford and we all pulled through it together.”
FC: How did the transition from Salford to Hull come about?
JG: The opportunity came up in 2016 to join Hull FC, and it wasn’t something I could turn down after the club had just won the Challenge Cup. I’ve really enjoyed my time here at Hull. All of the players get along, have great banter and work hard at the same time. There’s a really good culture at the club and hopefully I can keep improving here.”
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