'My best friend': How Strange got his daughter back on her feet for NRLW debut

She’s the first to admit she was a "tricky" child growing up but when it comes to listening to her coach, Jasmin Strange has her father to thank for helping her get through the toughest 12 months of her life.

The Strange family will make rugby league history on Sunday when coaches his daughter Jasmin in the Roosters’ NRLW clash against the Knights at Allianz Stadium.

It’s been a difficult period for Jasmin, who ruptured her ACL last year, causing her to switch off from the game because she couldn’t mentally come to terms with the setback.

But always in her corner was her dad, who while guiding the Roosters to their maiden 2021 NRLW premiership in April, was also doing all he could behind the scenes to get his daughter back on the field, even at his own expense.

As Jasmin struggled to get out of bed each day, brush her hair and shut off from the world by deactivating all of her social media accounts, John came up with a unique plan.

“It makes me emotional talking about it but he started to pretend he wanted to lose weight,” Jasmin tells NRL.com.

“He’d ask me if we could go for a walk for him. He wanted my help when really he wanted to help me.

“He knew if he said it to get me up and about I would’ve said no because I didn’t want to do anything. I was so down.

“One leg was smaller than the other because I wasn’t using the muscles properly with my recovery.

“I think he realised pretty quickly what was happening. I probably wouldn’t have got through it all without him. He’s my best friend in the whole world.”

As seen in the NRL, father and son combinations often come under the spotlight more than others with the likes of Nathan Cleary, Jakob Arthur and Billy Walters currently in their father’s teams.

John, who became involved in the women's game when Jasmin started playing, pushed his daughter into getting at least two games in for the Central Coast Roosters in the Harvey Norman NSW Premiership this year before even considering her for an NRLW contract.

It was that tough love that, while upsetting physiotherapists who said it was too early for her to come back, enabled Jasmin to push herself to make a return.

“Dad and I have a very different relationship when he’s a coach and when he’s a dad,” Jasmin said.

“As a dad he'll do anything he can for me. As a coach he has a different approach, he’s very stubborn with me. He never mentioned the NRLW once until I was almost back from injury.

“He tells me what I have to do and I can tell when he’s talking to me as a coach or as a dad which is nice for me to separate it. He’s definitely my harshest critic.”

The selection of Jasmin this week couldn’t have been any more straight forward with the coach calling his daughter after close mate Jayme Fressard’s leg cut became infected following last week’s win over the Dragons.

“We were having a normal conversation and he just said I’d be playing this week and I just thought, 'wait, what?',” Jasmin said.

“It was weird, he didn’t really make a big deal of it. I told mum and she started to get into me about stuff I need to do this week.

“I’m not really nervous yet, more just excited. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this for so long. It’s been probably the hardest year of my life so definitely going to be rewarding.”

As for if she’s seen any possible emotion from her dad this week, Jasmin said not from either the coach or dad version.

“I don’t think he’s letting it out yet, maybe he’s waiting to see how I go,” she quipped.

“He’s an odd one with that sort of stuff.”