{"id":554499,"date":"2025-11-07T05:56:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T05:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/554499\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T05:56:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T05:56:21","slug":"leeds-rhinos-star-jake-connor-lands-head-coach-role-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/554499\/","title":{"rendered":"Leeds Rhinos star Jake Connor lands head coach role for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/OH_3299.jpg\" class=\"attachment- size- wp-post-image\" alt=\"Leeds Rhinos halfback Jake Connor pre-match\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><strong>Leeds Rhinos star, Jake Connor, has capped off a stellar 2025 campaign by earning a promotion, and will become the new head coach of one of the biggest club\u2019s in amateur rugby league.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 2025 Man of Steel has worked with Halifax-based club, Siddal, for the past few seasons, and will now step up to become their permanent head coach.<\/p>\n<p>The club currently compete in the National Conference League Premier Division, and won the league in 2024, with Connor on board.<\/p>\n<p>A side known for bringing through Super League quality players, current England international Morgan Smithies came through there, and New Zealand Warriors-bound Morgan Gannon are two of many of their thriving graduates.<\/p>\n<p>Connor, a Siddal amateur himself, takes over from Gaz English in the role, who has coached the club since 2023.\u00a0 The Rhinos half-back will be joined by Gaz Blackburn, Russ Holroyd and Jason Greenwood-MacDonald.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cReady for the job\u201d \u2013 Leeds Rhinos star picks up head coach gig for 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the club social media about the announcement, Connor said: \u201cI am very grateful to be given this opportunity to coach this great club.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\">\u201cI\u2019ve done a few years of being an assistant and now I feel like I\u2019m ready for the job and want to lead the boys to success in 2026.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\">\u201cIt\u2019s great to get Gaz Blackburn onboard with us it\u2019s a huge signing for the club and the boys.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\">\u201cWe have everything we need, the foundations are built and we just need to deliver now as we have fallen short the past 2 years so I\u2019m looking forward to what the boys can do next year\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\"><strong>Serious About Rugby League has launched a brand new podcast which can be watched in full on our <a class=\"in-cell-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@SeriousAboutRL\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">YouTube channel here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/srl-logo.png\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leeds Rhinos star, Jake Connor, has capped off a stellar 2025 campaign by earning a promotion, and will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-554499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115506878455153410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}