Steve Linnane (born 5 March 1965) is an Australian former

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

player who played in the 1980s and 1990s, and

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Co ...

ed in the 2000s. After playing club football in the Winfield Cup for the St. George Dragons and the

Newcastle Knights The Newcastle Knights are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Newcastle, New South Wales. They compete in Australasia's premier rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership. Playing in red and blue, th ...

, he moved to England where he became coach of

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of ...

clubs Halifax Blue Sox and the

Hull Kingston Rovers Hull Kingston Rovers are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England, that competes in the Super League, the top tier of British rugby league. The club has won five league championships, and one Challenge ...

Playing career

As a young , Linnane was signed to the St. George Dragons in 1985. He was named

Dally M The Dally M Awards are the official annual player awards for the National Rugby League competition. As well as honouring the player of the year, who received the Dally M Medal, awards are also given to the premier player in each position, the be ...

Rookie of the year and was also the

1985 NSWRL season The 1985 New South Wales Rugby League premiership was the seventy-eighth season of professional rugby league football in Australia. Thirteen teams competed for the J J Giltinan Shield and Winfield Cup during the season, which culminated in a gra ...

's top try scorer with 16 tries. Also playing in that year's Grand Final, he narrowly missed out on a premiership in his debut season as the Bulldogs beat the Dragons by just one point. In 1987 Linnane was suspended for 20 weeks by the NSWRL judiciary for eye gouging Penrith Panthers's Greg Alexander. He stayed with the St. George Dragons until 1990 when he was sacked as a disciplinary action, then moved to the

for the

1991 NSWRL season The 1991 NSWRL season was the eighty-fourth season of professional rugby league football in Australia. This year the New South Wales Rugby League experimented with a draft system for the first time. Sixteen clubs competed for the J J Giltinan Sh ...

. During the

1992 Great Britain Lions tour of Australasia The 1992 Great Britain Lions tour of Australasia was a tour by the Great Britain national rugby league team, nicknamed the 'Lions', of Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand which took place between May and July 1992. The tour was the last of ...

Linnane was selected to play for the Country New South Wales team against the tourists.

Coaching career

Linnane was later

player-coach A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the sq ...

with

Kurri Kurri Kurri Kurri is a small town in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia, in the Cessnock LGA. At the , its population was 6,044. Kurri Kurri is the largest town in a group of towns and hamlets, including Stanford Merthyr, Pelaw Main, ...

from 1992 to 1996 before retiring as player in 1996. He was assistant coach at the Newcastle Knights to

Mal Reilly Malcolm John Reilly OBE (born 19 January 1948) is an English former rugby league player and coach. He played in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and coached in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. He played at representative level for Great Britain, E ...

and Warren Ryan from 1997 to 1999, and then became head coach at English club the

Rochdale Hornets The Rochdale Hornets are a professional rugby league club from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England, competing in the Championship, the second tier of European rugby league. The Rochdale Hornets are one of the original twenty-two rugby club ...

in December 1999. He quit in June 2000 to join the

club, Halifax Blue Sox as assistant coach to

Gary Mercer Gary Ivan Mercer (born 22 June 1966) is a New Zealand rugby league and rugby union coach and former professional rugby league footballer. A New Zealand international representative player, he has spent most of his career in Britain both playi ...

. Following Mercer's resignation in 2001 he was in temporary charge but was later appointed head coach of Halifax Blue Sox on a two-year contract. He was sacked in August 2002, the morning after a 64–0 loss to St. Helens which came after nine losses from ten games which put the club at risk of relegation. Linnane then became the

club's first overseas coach. Under him, the club came within eighty minutes of their first

grand final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

appearance in 2002, after a largely successful end to the season. In 2004 he resigned.

References

External links

Steve Linnane at nrlstats.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linnane, Steve 1965 births Living people Australian expatriate sportspeople in England Australian rugby league coaches Halifax R.L.F.C. coaches Hull Kingston Rovers coaches Kurri Kurri Bulldogs players Newcastle Knights players Rochdale Hornets coaches Rugby league halfbacks Rugby league players from Sydney Sportsmen from New South Wales St. George Dragons players