For almost any coach given the honour of coaching Leeds Rhinos, it is a moment years in the making. Years of hard work, sweat and tears culminating in the chance to lead one of the biggest brands in Super League. But for Rohan Smith, it is a moment he has envisaged for over half of his life, and is a dream he has harboured for over 25 years.
Smith's affinity with the city of Leeds runs much deeper than his rugby league career itself. In the mid-1990s, while his father was coaching Bradford Bulls during their early halcyon years in Super League, a then-teenage Smith grew up in Bramhope with his family and decided to chance his arm at playing rugby league locally. "I'd never experienced how you could play rugby league in such cold conditions," Smith laughs.
It was there Smith first met a young Jamie Jones-Buchanan, the man who will comprise part of his coaching staff when he officially arrives in England next week to take up a job he has always hoped would come into his vision. "As an aspiring coach, you have a few jobs where you know if they ever come up, you'd like to be in consideration," he says. "That was certainly the case here."
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Smith is not your average rugby league coach. Described by those who worked with him at Bradford as a 'student' and an 'obsessive' of the game, it was at the age of 16 Smith first felt he could inspire others. "When I was with my mates I loved playing footy but always trying to help them play better footy rather than having that selfish gene to knuckle down myself," he recalls.
"At 18, I started teaching swimming at University to make some money. It was literally teaching four-year-olds how to swim a few metres, and that was when I really knew that helping people to learn new skills was something I was passionate about." That philosophy remains at the heart of Smith's coaching mantra almost 25 years later: squeezing the best out of every player he comes across.
There is a notion that Smith is inexperienced as a coach, but his coaching career began when many his age were just starting out at players. At the age of 21, Smith was given his opportunity as a video analyst by Daniel Anderson at the New Zealand Warriors.
"When I started with Daniel in 2003 I thought I knew a bit about footy but that was a humbling experience for me, going there," he says. "Daniel threw me into some situations that made me think I knew nothing and that made me put my head down and learn." Smith's career looks somewhat nomadic on paper, with jobs all across the world in a plethora of roles. But he insists that is a deliberate trajectory he has taken.
"I've always been a coach in some capacity I guess and gradually I learned my trade by tasking risks and moving around the world and chasing different opportunities to build my bank of experiences," he says. It was that belief which took him to London in 2006 as an assistant to Tony Rea, another vital step in his career. He then returned to Australia to work with his father at Newcastle, but one club left a mark on him during his time in England.
"I remember being on the wrong end of some hammerings by Leeds at Headingley when I was at London," he recalls. "I always admired what the club was, what they stood for, the way they played and the real presence of genuine locally-grown talent." Smith continued to build his CV, working under the likes of Trent Robinson before, in 2016, came his boldest step yet.
The opportunity to follow in his father's footsteps and coach Bradford Bulls came up, but he was inheriting a very different club to the one Brian had some 20 years earlier. Besieged by off-field problems which led to the club's liquidation at the end of Smith's first season in charge, many would have shied away from the opportunity. Now, he looks back at that one season at Odsal is formative.
"The Bradford experience was unbelievable," he insists. "I gave up a job working in the NRL to take that on. It cost me a lot of money to not have a job in 2017 when I came home after the liquidation but we turned a roster over, we changed the mentality and it was all pointing in a good direction before what happened next.
"I chased the opportunity at Bradford because I felt ready for a challenging head coaching task and I think it did accelerate my coaching career. It cost me a year of not coaching in 2017 but it gave me a chance to be a father and focus on home life a bit more."
But now, six years on from that chastening experience in one part of West Yorkshire, Smith is back: with an even bigger challenge on his hands. He has enjoyed success since returning home with Queensland Cup side Norths Devils, but there is no doubting this an even bigger task awaiting him in Leeds.
What can Smith achieve in the short-term, and what can we expect from the new Rhinos coach in terms of what he hopes to instil upon a group so badly underachieving? "It's little of not knowing what's going on the building, that's the unknown but I know I can influence people on their behaviour and how they play the game," he says. I can improve an individual whether they're young, old or in between. I've an appetite towards improvement and that's quite infectious I think.
"It's a fresh start. It's fresh for the players and in a lot of ways it'll be a clean slate for some guys who haven't started the season in the way they would have liked. There's so many things that are going to evolve in the next few weeks. Identifying the best way of playing or preparing for each week's opposition will be key for me.
"I just want to help these guys play rugby league. I want to take Leeds as far as we can. I understand the immediacy of the role and it's a week-to-week thing in that regard but I'll always have an eye on next week, next month and next year. We'll have a vision for how the plans might be created in a few years time."
