'It was cool': Kiwi ace Brandon Smith hails Leeds Rhinos fans

The Melbourne Storm hooker - nicknamed Cheese - scored one of the Kiwis’ 14 tries in their record 74-0 rout of Rhinos in last Saturday’s World Cup warm-up match in front of a 9,125 crowd.

New Zealand are back at Headingley on October 28 to play Ireland and Smith said: “I’m looking forward to coming back, especially with a crowd like that.

“I hope they turn up for us again and not just because it was a Leeds game. We got a good welcome - I think the English fans are fans of sport in general and I was pretty happy with them.

“It was pretty cool. I’ve always known the English fans are pretty enthusiastic so it was pretty special and I think we got what we wanted out of the game.”

Smith went into the crowd at the end of the match to hand his jersey to a fan. He explained: “There's a little fella that sent me a video and some nice encouraging words and said he was a big fan.

“His dad reached out to me as well. I saw them holding up a big sign, apparently his nickname is Little Cheese and he plays dummy half as well so I thought 'why not'?

“I've a few jerseys I can play in so hopefully that makes his day and is something special for him.”

The score equalled the most points Leeds have ever conceded in a game and was their biggest margin of defeat.

Rhinos had had a week off between their Grand Final defeat to St Helens and beginning preparations to face New Zealand and Smith joked: “I knew about 10 of their players had been on the p*** for seven days!

“I know a few of the players and I saw their Instagrams, but they still manned up and played against us.

“I knew they’d be feeling a bit worse for wear so the scoreline might be a bit inflated because of that, but we played a tough game, we stuck to our processes and played pretty mature.”