At the start of 2024, Darnell McIntosh didn’t envision he’d be doing a six-hour round trip to work every day while not being in the team when the weekend came around, all while his partner was heavily pregnant at home. That though turned out to be reality for almost three months.
The 27-year-old had been with Hull FC since 2022, and started each of their first nine games this season – including a 58-0 defeat at St Helens on April 19.
Just four days later, the Black and Whites had decided to do a swap deal with Leigh which saw Tom Briscoe head the other way, and McIntosh’s life was turned upside down, both on and off the field.
The West Yorkshire native had been off-contract at FC anyway, so may well have been searching for a new club come the end of the season regardless.
But a move which came about in a matter of days forced him to drive almost the full length of the M62 on a daily basis – not exactly a pleasant journey.
Speaking to Love Rugby League, McIntosh detailed: “That was one of the main struggles around it. I was really happy rugby wise to join Leigh, but it was just the living situation side of things.
“For 10 weeks, I was driving and some days it was three hours there and then three hours back because I’d hit traffic going both ways.
“That was a bit challenging, and my partner is well on her way pregnancy wise too, so it was just one of those things – what are you going to do? It was something that I wanted and I just had to stick at it.
“We’ve come through it now though and we’re all back in Huddersfield. All of our family’s in Huddersfield, that’s where I’m from and it’s a really short journey for me now. It can take me 35 minutes if there’s no traffic.
That’s us now as a family, we’re settled. We’ll finish off the season, have my little girl and then hopefully get all of the kicking and screaming out the way pretty early… it just might be a tired pre-season next year!”
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