“Isn’t it great when he doesn’t get recognised in the crowd?”
Thus began Dave Smith’s introduction, via ARL Commission chairman John Grant, to the rugby league world as he emerged from the shadows of a media throng at Rugby League Central and into the limelight.
But no longer will the game’s new chief executive be just another face in the crowd at the football – that is when he attends his first NRL match in at least two years next season.
By his own admission Smith is a rugby league ‘outsider’, a working-class Welshman turned top-notch banker who hails from Pontypridd in the famously hard-nosed coal mining valleys just north of the capital Cardiff.
“This is the best job in Australia,” he boldly declared on Friday when presented to the press, and the fans, for the first time.
Whether he feels the same in a few seasons’ time remains to be seen – it is doubtful his predecessor David Gallop, who lasted ten years in the gig, would agree – but his positive approach is what rugby league needs.
As Gallop attempted to do on his first day as Football Federation Australia chief executive two weeks ago, Smith was keen to gain some street cred with the rugby league faithful after being handed what most consider the toughest gig in Australian sport.
“I am under no illusions whatsoever,” Smith, who admitted he hadn’t been to a rugby league game this year, said.
“I always try to earn credibility.”
Diplomatic throughout the press inquisition that lasted the best part of an hour, Smith said he developed a keen interest in the game while watching on TV in England – an interest that only grew when he moved to Australia nine years ago.
But the current chief executive of banking firm Lloyds International, who begins his new role on February 1 just a month before the start of the 2013 season, would not be drawn on the game’s big issues, politely avoiding questions about the biggest challenges facing the game.
Is he a fan of the controversially outed shoulder charge? Which NRL team does he support? The former rugby union five-eighth was not interested in answering either question.
Smith, 44, also denied he would be a yes man to the limelight-loving Grant.
“I am my own man,” he said.
“I can make the tough decision when it needs to be made. I’m a team player but the CEO runs the business, the CEO is the face of the business.”
Many challenges lie ahead for rugby league and Smith, the most obvious of those being an aggressive AFL and Gallop’s slumbering giant which he says has awoken.
But given the challenges of the banking sector over the past few years, Smith could prove to be the “right man for the job”, as Grant insisted, to guide rugby league forward.
