The teenager from Gdansk has enjoyed a rapid rise through the ranks at Leeds and is desperate to continue on the same trajectory as the Rhinos prepare for their Grand Final defence

Gdansk is one of the last places you would think of when it comes to rugby league, yet a small community in Poland’s sixth-biggest city will be paying close attention when Leeds Rhinos begin their Super League title defence at Warrington on Thursday.

“I send my grandad the results of all our games and post him clips of the games and the highlights,” says Mikolaj Oledzki. The 19-year-old is the latest product of the Rhinos’ revered talent pathway – a programme which has crafted some of the finest players in Super League history. But Oledzki’s story is different to the rest.

“I was born and bred in Gdansk. I moved to England when I was about nine but it was a tough start for me because I couldn’t speak English and all my friends were left behind in Gdansk. I had to have translators in school to help me understand what we were doing in lessons. It was a really difficult start to life and it was easy to miss home.”

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Oledzki’s family settled initially in Corby. A talented sportsman, he began to excel at swimming, appearing for Northamptonshire’s county team from a young age. But when they moved closer to his uncle in Leeds, he discovered rugby league.

“I just didn’t enjoy swimming enough and when we came up north, the opportunity to get into a team sport and play rugby came up. It provided me with the chance to make some friends, face different challenges every day and I fell in love with it as soon as I started. It was good for me, who went from not having any friends to clicking with loads of people.”

Of course, it helped that Oledzki took to rugby league like the proverbial duck to water. Having always cut an imposing figure among his peers, he instantly stood out, joining the highly rated amateur side Hunslet Warriors before being brought into Leeds’ Academy structure four years ago. His progress is all the more incredible given that he has been a full-time professional for only a matter of months.

Yet as early as last season, Oledzki made his debut for the Rhinos’ senior side and after a loan spell at the then Championship side Bradford, he is expected to feature much more prominently for the Rhinos this season. “I was at college until July so I didn’t actually begin training full-time until midway through last year – that’s given me a real taste for it this year,” he says.

“Bradford was huge for me. I learned more there, being thrown in at the deep end at a club who were in desperate trouble, than being somewhere and winning every week. My main goal is just to be a better player than I was last year, no matter how many games I play in 2018.”

Even now, though, with a whiff of a Yorkshire accent in Oledzki’s voice and several England Academy appearances already under his belt – he is regarded as an international star of the future by many within the sport – home will always be Poland for the young forward, so much so that he is actually keen to help spread the growth of the game in the country.

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“I’m very proud to be Polish – so proud. This isn’t really heard of, a league player coming from Poland. There are people back home messaging me to do interviews and asking me about rugby – who knows, maybe the sport is moving forward a little bit in Poland. I’d love to help get it started properly if I could.

“I scroll down Twitter sometimes to see what’s happening in Poland, and you see more and more teams involved. I saw a few Polish celebrities; there’s a strongman called Mariusz Pudzianowski and he actually played in one of the games. He’s a superstar in Poland so that’s incredible.”

Oledzki is not the first Polish-born player to appear in Super League – that honour is reserved for Grzegorz Kacala, who made a handful of appearances for the ill-fated Paris Saint-Germain side of the late-1990s. If Oledzki’s career continues on this trajectory, though, it is likely the people of Gdask will know far more about him sooner or later.