Brian Smith

Who is Brian Smith?

Brian Smith is an Australian retired rugby football player and current coach. He was Director of Rugby at Aviva Premiership team London Irish. He was the attack coach for England between 2008 and 2011.

Smith was born in St George, Queensland. He played rugby union for the Queensland Reds, and won 6 caps for Australia in 1987,. He played in 2 Varsity matches for Oxford Uni as well as captaining them before playing 9 times for Ireland between 1989 and 1991 as a fly-half. For the 1990/91 season he played club rugby for Leicester Tigers in England.

He later played rugby league for Balmain Tigers and Eastern Suburbs in the NSWRL competition. He played mainly as a five-eighth and also as a halfback.

He has coached rugby union at the Ricoh Rugby Club in Japan, Eastern Suburbs in Sydney, Bath Rugby, the youth setup in New South Wales and was coaching co-ordinator at the ACT Brumbies. He has coached at representative level with the Australia Sevens side. While Director of Rugby at London Irish in the Guinness Premiership, Smith was linked with the Ireland job as a replacement for Eddie O'Sullivan. In July 2008 he was appointed England attack coach.