HI, it’s Luke here.
There’s a general feeling within the game that prop forwards aren’t exactly blessed with the greatest of intelligence.
I’d like to say Huddersfield Giants are the exception to that rule.
But if I did, I’d be lying!
To be honest, I don’t think we’ve got the worst group of front-rowers in Super League, but there’s no doubt our big fellas have their moments.
And this past week or so has certainly been no exception.
It all started with the ‘School Blitz’ we do every Wednesday, when every member of the Super League squad visits a school to spread the Giants gospel.
We all gather at The Zone at 8am and, in groups of two, we’re assigned a junior school in the area when we give a talk on healthy living, focusing specifically on the importance of sport to keep you fit and the need for a healthy diet.
At the end of the talk, the children – who are aged between seven and 10 – can ask the players questions.
This was when Adam Walker took centre stage.
Fozz (as he is affectionately known by everyone) was asked by one youngster how many hours a day he trains.
Quick as a flash, he answered: “We do an hour in the morning, an hour around lunchtime and an hour in the afternoon, so about five hours a day!”
No doubt that confused the gathered little ones, as did a talk from Keith Mason, who knows all the correct training terms – albeit in Arnold Schwarzenegger language – but doesn’t seem to have mastered how to make it simple enough for seven-year-olds to understand.
Asked how he gets himself so fit and has all those big muscles, he started telling them all about ‘training loading phases, hypertrophy, carbohydrate loading etc, etc, etc’.
For some unknown reason, the kids seemed to lose a bit of interest after that, and the follow-up questions then turned to whether big Keith liked watching ‘Peppa Pig’ and eating chocolate cake. Far more important!
But neither of them earned the ‘Helmet of the Week’ for that. Our young prop Josh Johnson was the undisputed winner of that, and you’ll soon understand exactly why.
Last Monday, Josh turned up in our physios room in a panic and in a real sweat. First thing in the morning, he’d looked at his text messages and discovered one from physio Nathan Mill saying he needed to be at the Galpharm for a massage.
That meant he had to hot-foot it over from his home in Oldham to make sure he wasn’t late.
But when he arrived for his appointment, Millsy was completely and utterly shocked. He wasn’t expecting to see him at all!
What poor Josh had stupidly done was read a text from Millsy from a couple of weeks ago, thought it was a new one and went into a mad panic.
How Josh had managed to do this and not realised it was a text from a few weeks before, only he will ever know. And, as yet, we still can’t quite understand how it happened.
So Josh, the tee-shirt was well and truly deserved!
