Knight of St George is odds-on at Odsal

Brian Smith is in the unique position of coaching two rugby league clubs on opposite sides of the world. Dave Hadfield found him in Sydney, thinking of Bradford

There will be times over the next few weeks when Brian Smith casts his eye around the marble halls of St George - still the grandest of Sydney's league clubs - contrasts them with a mental picture of Odsal and wonders why he has made the decision to trade one for the other.

There are big plans for Odsal - when were there not? - but the bleak, barren stadium is never going to match the surroundings that Smith is about to leave.

Appearances, however, are not everything. Smith is happy to exchange life as coach of St George for what might seem the more mundane existence in charge of the Bradford Bulls. His problem at the moment is that he is doing both. While Smith is guiding his Australian club on their late surge to a place in the play-offs, he is also, by remote control, coaching his new club 11,000 miles away.

"I've never worked as hard as I'm doing at the moment," said Smith after another St George win which increased the likelihood of his departure for Britain being delayed.

"I'm working as hard as I can on this," as he indicates the St George players sitting down to their post-match meal, somewhere on the umpteenth floor of the club. "Then I'm going home and working on Bradford at night."

That involves staying in constant contact with Matthew Elliott, the former St George player who is holding the fort at Odsal until Smith arrives. Their phone call on Sunday night cannot have been a very happy one, because Bradford had just been bulldozed 55-10 by St Helens.

It was noticeable that Elliott's after-match analysis matched exactly what Smith had said the week before: it will take time and sometimes things must get worse before they get better.

That is understood on both sides. Smith has not been brought to Odsal to tamper with the system: he is there to revamp it from top to bottom. There could be plenty of drama and not a little disappointment along the way.

That drama has already started, in fact, with the apparent determination of Bradford's most valuable asset to leave the club. Paul Newlove, a player Smith admires intensely, would like to be away from Odsal before his new boss even arrives.

He has decided, some three months after the event, that he objects to the way Bradford replaced his guide and mentor, Peter Fox, with Smith. A lucrative move, to Leeds, for instance, now appeals strongly.

Newlove was the first player Smith tried to sign when he began his first coaching stint in England, with Hull in 1988. Then a young amateur, Newlove opted to join Featherstone Rovers - and Fox - instead. It is not to demean Fox's contribution to his development to say that Newlove desperately needs a new coach now, and Smith wants it to be him.

There is more there to be drawn out and Bradford want to be the club to benefit, but Newlove has other ideas.

It is the last thing that Smith needs, his best player unsettled before he even arrives, but his record suggests that he can deal with this and worse crises. Smith first made his name as coach of Illawarra in the Winfield Cup, made Hull a power in the game during his 30 months there and has taken St George to two Grand Finals since returning to Australia.

Unlike some Australian coaches, therefore, he is not coming to Britain unaware of the contrast between the game on the two sides of the world. It is, in fact, those differences which have lured him back.

"I always intended to come back to Britain," he said. "I enjoyed it so much there the first time. It's the involvement, the emotion that surrounds the game in England. It's not often I get to meet people who are as passionate about the game as me - but in England I do."

Disillusionment with the atmosphere of the game in Australia has also played a role in persuading Smith to uproot his family once more. Apart from the strife and dissension caused by the Super League schism, Smith has become depressed by the drift of St George as a club to the margins of the game, culminating in a proposal - since abandoned - that they should merge with the Sydney City Roosters 15 miles away.

As Smith is back-slapped from marble hall to marble hall at St George, it is hard to believe that Odsal is the more appealing prospect. But there, he believes, he will have a free hand rather than one that has been tied behind his back in Sydney.

Bradford was not his expected destination if he returned to Britain, but the timing at Leeds, who have courted him throughout his absence, was just slightly out and he insists that he has never wanted to coach Wigan.

"I like the thought of building something from the ground, rather than re-inventing the wheel. This time I've got a real chance. I feel that the club has the potential to become big."

Not marble-lined, with a view of the ocean perhaps - but big.