24 March 2023 , 18:06
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It is slightly surreal now how there’s eight sons of past players on Leeds Rhinos' books.
It was great this week to see my lad Lewis get his first professional contract at Headingley. But he’s just the latest. At various levels - scholarship, academy and first team - Kev Sinfield, Jamie Jones-Buchanan, Lee Smith, Matt Diskin, Jamie Field and David Gibbons all have offspring playing there. And then there’s Morgan Gannon and Jarrod O’Connor - who’ve made that leap and are not far off becoming established top-flight players - whose dads also represented Super League rivals.
We don't talk about it much between us as parents as most of the players are really in their infancy stage. We all understand there’s a really big journey from playing in the scholars, signing a part-time contract, being a squad player - all those three positions - to being a regular Super League performer. If any of them do make it it will be outstanding. Interestingly, Kylie Leuluai’s lad Marley is nearly all the way with Manchester City as well!
Huddersfield Giants’ Will Pryce is another one and if you look at the Burgess brothers - four of them - who played professionally in rugby league, it does show genetics has a big part to play as well as nurture. It’s great for Lewis. He’s a little bit like myself: a bit of a late developer. He’s worked really hard to get to this position. But he knows it’s only a little foot in the door. He understands there’s a hell of a long way to go yet and plenty of hard work to do. He’s in the right environment to do that, though, at Leeds.
When it comes to whether he always wanted to follow me into professional rugby league, he’s seen both sides. A little like me, growing up, it wasn’t his burning desire to be a professional rugby league player.
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I imagine he thought that chance had gone when he stopped playing a few years ago. But then he got picked up after playing rugby union with his school and now he is in there it’s definitely his ambition: you can see he’s motivated to do it.
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