Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Born | 24 January 1964 Castleford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Refereeing information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: [1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Russell Smith is a former rugby league referee who now administers and coaches match officials.
Smith controlled his first Rugby Football League Championship match on 9 September 1990, a match between Featherstone Rovers and Hull Kingston Rovers. His first international was between Australia and New Zealand on 20 June 1993. [1]
He controlled matches in the 1995 and 2000 Rugby League World Cups, as well as five Challenge Cup finals. [2] In 2004 he was named the international referee of the year. [3]
He moved to Australia in 2005, becoming a National Rugby League referee. [4] He retired at the end of the 2006 NRL season. [1]
After retiring, Smith became a video official and, after a stint as the interim boss, [5] [6] acted as a senior advisor to the referees boss, Daniel Anderson. [7] [8] He was a match officials coach at the 2017 Rugby League World Cup. [9]