Josh Reynolds has opened up on the crazy start to his time at Hull FC.
The Black and Whites signed the former New South Wales stand-off prior to the 2020 season, but that coincided with a national lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking on James Graham’s podcast, The Bye Round, Reynolds shed some light on his move and the events of the first few weeks.
“It was a full lockdown, the first day,” said Reynolds. “The Hull social media team said ‘do you mind doing a post about the news today because there has been a full lockdown of the whole of England’.
“They asked me to put a positive spin on it. I questioned what they meant by a full lockdown and they just said that the club will talk to you.
“I then had to do a thing (video) and say how I had landed in Manchester and I was very excited, but that I’m sorry to hear about the lockdown. I had no idea what to say.”
Reynolds admits that the pandemic combined with the other cultural and environmental challenges of moving country, made it a real challenge in the beginning.
“We went to training for two hours and had come straight home, that was it,” he said. “I was alright at the start, because I was excited and every time I went to training it was something different.
“I had come from the Tigers and it didn’t end well. So I’m going to Hull thinking new club, fresh start. I got in there, there was a different banter and I thought ‘this is going to be good’.
“It was freezing and I was staying in an apartment right in the middle of Hull. There are some very interesting people in the centre of Hull and I didn’t know what to expect.
“You would walk onto training and it would be ice. I thought that they would call it off and Gaz Ellis is saying we have got wrestle today on that, on the gravel.
“It was a very interesting time at the start, just because of the Covid.”
Despite all the challenges Reynolds faced, he admits that he did warm up to the English lifestyle.
“I really bought into the culture,” Reynolds added. “When things started opening back up, I enjoyed it.
“It’s different banter. They used to drink tea at training. Like cups of tea. Everything is different.”