'I've embraced the British game' - Smith at 500

When he took charge of his first Super League match as Huddersfield Giants boss on March 4, 2001, little did Tony Smith imagine he would still be in the competition 499 games later. In fact, he probably never envisaged he would have ever been back in the UK in the first place.

The Australian's first experience of the British game was one he would rather forget, spending the 1996 season - the first year of summer rugby league - playing for Super League bottom-markers Workington Town and living in a flat above a chip shop in the sport's most north-westerly outpost.

Five years later though, former Illawarra Steelers and St George Dragons stand-off Smith was back, having paid his own way over to interview for the Huddersfield job in pursuit of his head coach ambitions and starting out on a stay which has seen him based on these shores for 21 years and counting.

Smith and his wife have become so embedded in this country that, as well as having a spell in charge of the Great Britain and England national teams, he became a British citizen in 2008 and recalled how what was initially intended to be a stay for a couple of years became over two decades.

"I had an old player I bumped into a couple of months ago at a 40th birthday party and he reminded me of something he said to me because I kept referring back to Australia as home," Smith told Sky Sports.

"I was referring to the Australian game a few times when I came over and he went 'if it's so good over there, what are you doing here?' - and it made me realise and commit to the game here.

"If I was only here temporarily, I needed to be committed to the country and from that day on, I stopped calling Australia home and I haven't considered it home ever since.

"It has changed, and