Rhys Lovegrove

Rhys Lovegrove (born 11 March 1987) is an Australian rugby league coach who is the assistant coach at the London Broncos in the Betfred Championship and a former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 2000s and 2010s.

Rhys Lovegrove
Personal information
Full nameRhys Houston Lovegrove[1]
Born (1987-03-11) 11 March 1987
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Playing information
Height6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Weight16 st 3 lb (103 kg)
PositionProp, Second-row, Loose forward
Club
Years Team Pld T G FG P
2007–14 Hull Kingston Rovers 159 19 0 0 76
2015 London Broncos 20 1 0 0 4
2016 Bradford Bulls 5 0 0 0 0
Total 184 20 0 0 80
Coaching information
Club
Years Team Gms W D L W%
2019–23 Keighley Cougars 90 62 1 27 69
Source: [2][3]

He played for the Bradford Bulls, Hull Kingston Rovers and the London Broncos, primarily as a second-row forward and occasionally as a prop. After retiring from playing Lovegrove moved into coaching and took up his first head coaching role as the head coach of the Keighley Cougars at Cougar Park in June 2019.

Background

Lovegrove was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

A Como Jannali Crocadiles junior who, while attending Endeavour Sports High School, played for the Australian Schoolboys Team in 2004.[4]

Playing career

He was initially signed by the Hull Kingston Rovers on loan from the St George-Illawarra Dragons until the end of the 2007 Super League season, but then made the move permanent. In September 2014, he joined the London Broncos.[5]

He was named in the Scotland Training Squad for the 2008 Rugby League World Cup,[6] but he was forced to withdraw through injury.[7]

Coaching

Bradford Bulls

In August 2016 he announced his retirement due to injury from playing to join the coaching staff at the Bradford Bulls.[8]

Keighley Cougars

Following periods on the coaching staff at Bradford and Doncaster, Lovegrove joined Keighley Cougars as assistant coach in January 2019 and was appointed as head coach in June 2019 following the sacking of Craig Lingard the previous month.[9]

In 2022 Lovegrove coached Keighley to a perfect season as the Cougars won promotion from League 1 to the RFL Championship and was named as League 1 coach of the year in the RFL end-of-season awards.[10]

Lovegrove left Keighley in May 2023, by mutual consent.[11]

London Broncos

He joined the London Broncos as assistant coach in June 2023.

Hull KR

On 19 Oct 2023 he returned to Hull KR in the role of assistant coach[12]

References
  1. Companies House
  2. loverugbyleague
  3. Rugby League Project
  4. "SportingPulse Homepage for Australian Secondary Schools Rugby League". SportingPulse. Retrieved 10 October 2008.
  5. "Rhys Lovegrove: London Broncos sign Hull KR forward". BBC Sport. 5 September 2014. Retrieved 15 December 2014.
  6. "Henderson trio in Scots cup squad". BBC. 29 August 2008. Retrieved 3 October 2008.
  7. "Heckenberg out of the World Cup". Quins. 29 September 2008. Retrieved 3 October 2008.
  8. "London Broncos sign Jay Pitts from Bradford Bulls". Sky Sports. 26 August 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
  9. "Keighley Cougars appoint Rhys Lovegrove as head coach". Keighley News. 13 June 2019. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  10. "Ipape and Miller named Players of the Year". www.rugby-league.com. RFL. 26 September 2022. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  11. "Keighley coach in surprise departure". LoveRugbyLeague. 15 May 2023. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
  12. "Former Hull KR favourite returns to Craven Park in new coaching role: 'I really wanted this to be the next stage of my career'". Love Rugby League. 19 October 2023.
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