Rod Lester-Smith

Rod Lester-Smith (born 18 July 1959) is a former Australian rules footballer who played with East Fremantle in the West Australian Football League, as well as Hawthorn and the Brisbane Bears in the VFL/AFL. He was a member of the 1985 All-Australian Team.

Lester-Smith played mostly on the wing at East Fremantle, during six seasons with the club. Although he was injury prone, particularly in his knees, Lester-Smith managed 89 games in his first stint with the Sharks and was a member of the 1979 WAFL premiership team.

At Hawthorn he spent most of his time at half back and was unlucky not to play in a winning grand final team: Lester-Smith played in the grand final losses of 1984 and 1985; when Hawthorn won a flag in 1986, he was a last minute omission from the grand final team.

A Western Australian interstate representative, Lester-Smith was selected as an All-Australian team in 1985. In the same year he was Hawthorn's top vote getter at the Brownlow Medal count. Lester-Smith crossed to the Brisbane Bears in 1988, and celebrated his 100th VFL/AFL game with a 66 point win over Geelong at Carrara. He won a reserves premiership with the Bears in 1991.^[1]

He finished his career with one season back at East Fremantle, in 1993. He coached the club for part of 2003 and the entire 2004 season.

Lester-Smith later worked as football manager at the West Coast Eagles.

References

• Rod Lester-Smith's statistics from AFL Tables
• Full Points Footy profile
• Holmesby, Russell and Main, Jim (2007). The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers. 7th ed. Melbourne: Bas Publishing.