
Hull FC centre Josh Griffin has set his sights on becoming an England international.
The 27-year-old has been in fine form for the Black and Whites this season, scoring four tries in eleven appearances. Griffin put in a man of the match display to help FC comfortably ease past Widnes Vikings 39-20 on Thursday.
And he is now targeting a spot in Wayne Bennett’s England side.
“It’s always in the back of my mind,” Griffin told League Express. “There are some great centres in that environment, but I want to keep knocking on the door and keep rolling out performances and hopefully I will be there or thereabouts come the end of the season.
“I’m happy to get man of the match. My form is back where I want it to be. I struggled with a couple of injuries last year and I just want to keep building. I played in the left centre role, which is my favourite position, so hopefully I can keep improving.”
Hull coach Lee Radford believes Griffin has what it takes to compete with the likes of Kallum Watkins, John Bateman and Mark Percival for an England spot in the centres.
“I think he has a chance of contention,” Radford said. “There are some amazing centres at the moment. (Mark) Percival was phenomenal against us and Kallum Watkins is a fair old centre as well, so he has some competition there, that’s for sure.
“He was fantastic against Widnes. He played with a hamstring injury so to put in that sort of performance was impressive. I think he racked some good metres up and he carried the ball really strong for us. He is making a lot of metres after contact and that’s a sign of his strength. He is going through teams at the moment.”
Hull played their fourth game in the space of 14 days on Thursday. And Griffin admitted that he isn’t the biggest fan of the Easter schedule and will be glad to have a few days rest ahead of their clash with Leeds Rhinos on Thursday.
“It has been a tough old Easter period,” he continued. “There were two busted teams going up against each other. It was closer than we wanted it to be, but we ran away with it towards the end. We’ll take the points, have some time off and rest up a bit.
“It is a gruelling part of the season. There were busted bodies everywhere, there are teams struggling to get players on the pitch and I felt sorry for Widnes, they lost a few during the game, which is never easy. We lost Carlos (Tuimavave) in the warm up, so we ran with three subs. It isn’t a great part of the year, and it is one that we are happy to come out the back of.”