Denive Balmforth says he gets on the ‘West Yorkshire bus’ with Aidan Sezer so he has an opportunity to pick the brains of the in-form Hull FC skipper whenever he likes.
The young hooker got to take to the field with him again versus Leigh in what was the Aussie scrum-half’s 250th career appearance. Balmforth, making his first outing in almost a month, came off the bench in the 26-12 success and hopes to retain his spot for Saturday’s trip to Perpignan.
Sezer ran the show as Hull stormed into a 26-0 interval lead at Leigh and he said: “Everyone saw his class. What an amazing achievement: 250 games at the highest level.
“It’s a testament to him and I’m really proud of him doing that. Me and Seze both travel over together [to training] from Leeds so I’d like to say we’ve got quite a tight-knit bond.
“He’s a really good guy and you can see how he directs people on the field, the way he just carries himself, he’s a top player and a top bloke.”
Hull’s travelling contingent has grown to quite a number. Balmforth admitted: “There’s quite a few of us now. We take it in turns to drive.
“There’s about eight or nine of us. We have a real army! There’s me, Prycey, Liam Knight and Seze. And then there’s another bus with Oli Holmes, Yusuf Aydin, Sam Eseh, Ed Chamberlain and Zak Hardaker.”
Balmforth, who signed a new three-year deal in March, made his seventh appearance of the season at Leigh. He has a fight on to oust Amir Bourouh from the number nine role but said: “It was just good to get out there.
“I don’t mind whether I play five minutes, ten minutes or a full game as long as I can contribute to this team winning, then I’m happy. It was my first game back in a few weeks so it felt a bit tough. But it was good. It was always going to be a challenge to go over there and do a job on Leigh at home.
“But the boys stuck to what we’d been doing throughout the week and we did good. Now we’ll look to carry it on against Catalans. It’s normally a tough place to go and turn them over. But we’ve done it before.”