Confidence is everything, and now Amir Bourouh has it, Andy Last is tipping the Hull FC hooker to fly.
Amir Bourouh in action for Hull FC.(Image: Dave Lofthouse, Hull FC)
Andy Last has jumped to the defence of criticised Hull FC player Amir Bourouh – and believes the hooker deserves more credit for his role in the team.
A tough player, Bourouh’s defensive attributes have stood out more than most in his time at the Black and Whites so far, with his attacking assets now set to come out after encouragement from Last to ‘run the ball’ more.
Hull saw the benefit of Bourouh’s running game last week at Castleford Tigers, breaking the line after a Ligi Sao offload to set Jake Arthur up for the first try. He also got another assist from Cade Cust late on, with the hooker, now in his second season at the club, challenged now to pick more moments to show what he can do with the ball.
Bourouh is set to work in tandem with Cade Cust in the dummy-half role once again against Toulouse Olympique on Sunday afternoon, with the allowance to channel his energy into both strands of his game.
Speaking about his hooker, Last, a fellow dummy half back in his playing days, said: “He’s someone who has been a bit short on confidence, shall we say? He’ll laugh if he sees that. I get into him all the time about his size. He’s the garden gnome of the team, Amir. He’s also a kid who doesn’t get the credit he deserves.
“Amir trains really, really hard. He’s so competitive, plays big minutes, and defensively does so much unseen work at third man, and he’s a great wrestler.
“What was so pleasing for me against Castleford was that you saw the attacking side of his game on the back of some quick rucks. He’s probably taken a little bit of a while to get used to it (the quicker ruck interpretations) and probably just needed a little bit more encouragement to get out and run.
“I think he’s done a really, really good job. I loved the break he made on the back of Ligi Sao’s offload, straight up the middle of the field and he put Jake Arthur under the posts. He then put Cade Cust over with a nice little bit of deception on the try line.”
Continuing his praise, Last added: “Amir is a really good lad. He works hard at his game and deserves a little bit more praise and pats on the back. I’ll continue to pat him on the back if he continues playing as well as he did.
“He picked up some confidence from that, doing what he did so early. I just thought he grew in stature with his performance.”