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."
