Hull FC’s Josh Griffin discusses his injury hell as he aims to return to Super League action

Hull FC centre Josh Griffin missed the large majority of last campaign after suffering a torn ACL injury against the eventual Grand Final winners St Helens in June.

He was also tipped to be called up to the England squad in the near future which was an even harder blow for the 31-year-old.

Speaking ahead of the first game of the season against Wakefield Trinity, Griffin described his time out with injury as he looks forward to being back out in the black and white.

“[The injury] was really tough mentally.

“There was positive and negatives to it.

“There was some very long days where I questioned myself. When we had the losing streak, it was hard to come into training but then on the other hand it gave me a chance to live a normal life outside of rugby.

“It was a long process and I’m glad it’s behind me and it’s not something I want to do again with it being my first long-term injury. It’s probably made me better mentally as a player.”

After a disappointing 2021, Griffin will be hoping to help improve the form that FC ended last season with and hope to get off on a much more positive note.

“Pre-season has been good. We’ve had an honest pre-season as a squad and built some togetherness that we’re striving for.

“If you take away the last nine or so games last year, we were up there and competing. Unfortunately, we had a lot of injuries and COVID-19 and we probably didn’t handle them as well as we could have.

“We’ve all took some time out to reflect on what went wrong last year. Brett [Hodgson] has put his hand up as well and he’s learnt from his first year as a head coach so hopefully we can all move forward and have a good year.”

With Griffin previously tipped for an England appearance prior to his devastating injury, he admitted that it is something to work towards but not a subject on the forefront of his mind at this moment in time.

“Selfishly I was over the moon that the World Cup got cancelled but I’m just focussing on getting back to playing well for FC at the moment.

“If I can do that then the rest of it will take care of itself. It’s [the World Cup]there at the back of my mind but it’s not one of my main goals.”

So with club rugby the main priority for the time being at least, Griffin will be hoping to hit the ground running come February 13th.

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