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When the great and the good of Leicester’s past gathered for lunch on Thursday, Michael Cheika was asked to address them and the occasion left him in no doubt about the club’s towering expectations.
There were six World Cup winners in the room, led by the iconic captain, Martin Johnson, who has been instrumental in the creation of the ‘Sabretooth Tigers’ — as in, long-in-the-tooth former players. All around were decorated Lions, Test legends, title winners and revered local stalwarts. It is just as well Cheika is used to high-stakes coaching, because his guest appearance highlighted the culture of success at what remains the biggest club in English rugby.
‘I don’t know if there’s pressure,’ says the Australian, in an exclusive interview with Mail Sport. ‘I don’t feel it, I suppose. I don’t see it as pressure, I see it as responsibility. Here, there is a reputation for success. It’s the first time I’ve been somewhere like that. We don’t have to just live up to that reputation, we have to give it a few more coats of paint. We want to add our part to a rich history.’
Attending the ‘long lunch’ certainly served to sharpen his focus, ahead of his first game in charge of Leicester — Saturday’s clash with Exeter at Sandy Park.
‘There were some pretty illustrious chaps in the room and you get a feel for what the club has been about,’ says Cheika. ‘You could sense those guys want to see the team do well. They talked about the great times under this banner. They want to see it flying high again. I could feel that.
Michael Cheika has insisted he doesn’t feel the pressure after taking over Leicester Tigers
Cheika addressed a room full of Leicester legends, including England great Martin Johnson, on Thursday
The Australian added that he wants to maintain the club’s fighting spirit under his leadership
‘When I spoke, I said I want to look under the bonnet and understand what makes this place tick. From Martin (Johnson)’s generation, they’ve liked to play the game with real ferocity up front. I can identify with that type of rugby. That has become what they are known for; having that fighting spirit. Do I want to change that? No — not a chance.’
It was a short walk from one speaking engagement to the next for Cheika; from setting his stall out in front of all those household names at Mattioli Woods Welford Road, past the Sabretooth-branded open-top bus in the car park, to his temporary home a few metres away, the Voco Hotel.
There, in the ‘Lair’ — the bar overlooking Leicester’s famous ground — he discusses the decision to become the highest-profile new recruit in the Premiership this year.
Cheika has worked in great cities, including Sydney, Paris, Tokyo and Buenos Aires. So, does his latest career stop in the East Midlands feel like a very different, down-to-earth environment?
‘It’s not about comparing, it’s about enjoying the experience in every place I go,’ he says.
‘I’ve always prided myself on being someone who can have a glass of champagne with a King or Queen or a beer on a building site. I’m not classist at all. Some places have a few more monuments than others and a few more airports, but people are people and you just enjoy the experience wherever you are.’
He has been rushing to gain an understanding of his new surroundings, from ‘why rugby is plugged into the place here’ to a wider grasp of Leicester and the surrounding county. ‘I’ve already been to see the Foxes play,’ he says of Leicester’s football team. Asked if he had been aware of their title triumph eight years ago, he adds: ‘When they won the Premier League? Of course.
The previous stint of Cheika’s globe-trotting coaching career saw him take charge of Argentina
But after missing out on a job in the NRL he believes the time is right for him to take on the Premiership
The 57-year-old detailed his appreciation for football and revealed he is friendly with members of compatriot Ange Postecoglou’s coaching team at Tottenham
‘I follow soccer. It’s a coach’s game because it’s so tactical and it’s interesting to watch. I went to Manchester United against Liverpool a few weeks ago and I went to watch Leicester play Spurs, because I know a couple of guys on the Spurs coaching team — Aussie guys there.
‘I’ve also visited places around the city and little country areas as well. I was in a beautiful country pub last night, I’ve been to all different places, just to understand a bit more why guys come to play at Leicester. I’ve also been hurriedly sorting out pre-season and building a base, because it’s all happened very quickly.’
The backstory to Cheika’s arrival is a two-part drama. The Tigers first tried to recruit him at the end of the 2022-23 season, after Steve Borthwick and Kevin Sinfield left abruptly to answer their country’s call. But the timing was not right.
‘I was contacted by Leicester, but I was with Argentina and I never sign a deal to go somewhere when I’m with another team,’ says Cheika. ‘I almost feel like it’s cheating. I was honoured that they gave me a call, but I couldn’t make any commitments.
‘After the World Cup, I took a bit of a break, then in April or May, I started thinking, ‘What am I going to do now?’. I’d been contacted about applying for a position with a club in the NRL (National Rugby League in Australia), which is something I am interested in doing in future.
‘Things must have been happening here at that time so they (Tigers) contacted me, but I said, ‘No, I’m going to rugby league — I want to have a crack at that’.
‘But not long after, it came out that I wasn’t going to get that position, so I spoke to my wife and said, ‘This is a club I’ve always been interested in’. It was about the logistics for us — how it would work; would everyone come here or not? It all happened in the space of a couple of days.’
His family have moved back to Sydney, where Cheika’s four teenage children have enrolled in a French school, to continue their globe-trotting, multi-lingual education. Meanwhile, Michael set about trying to hit the ground running with his new club.
Leicester first contacted Cheika during his time in charge of Los Pumas but he turned them down
Cheika’s family have remained down under as he puts his roots down in the East Midlands
‘I’d had a chance to quickly see the new strength and conditioning coach,’ he says. ‘He was finishing up at Catalans Dragons, so I flew down to see him, we had a talk for a few days, then three days later it was happening.
‘Considering I didn’t know anything about the facilities we had here or the technology, we came up with a pretty good plan. I said to the boys, ‘Hopefully this is the last time you’ll have to do this sort of pre-season because we’ll be playing until later in the season from now on’.’
Leicester have secured the services of a man with a formidable C.V., who has been World Rugby Coach of the Year, led Australia to a World Cup final and won the Heineken Cup with Leinster — defeating the Tigers in 2009. Cheika will also maintain his on-going ‘passion’ project in League, in charge of Lebanon.
For all he has achieved to date, the 57-year-old is convinced that the best is yet to come. ‘I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think that of myself,’ he says. ‘I’ve always been trying to better myself. I feel like there’s heaps more in me. I’ve got a lot of experience now and I like the idea of the challenge here.’
There will be the intent to keep engaging his players by coming up with some surprise ploys. In the past, he has had squads drinking champagne early on a Monday morning, or presented them with engraved, personalised golf clubs, with orders to ‘take a swing’, in more ways than one.
‘I’ll have a few ideas for the guys here,’ he says. ‘Those little tricks can be a bit of fun, but it all has to be about telling a story to get a performance out there.’ But how will his veteran England prop, Dan Cole, react to being offered a glass of bubbly before training?
‘He is very multi-layered. Would you be expecting him to do a podcast? There you go. He’s a character. I’m sure he’ll snap up a glass of champers, for sure!’
Cheika’s impressive CV has seen him win the Heineken Cup and lead the Wallabies to the World Cup final
Now he is tasked with returning a Tigers side that under-achieved last season back to their best
Last season, Leicester finished eighth, despite being armed with a powerful squad — which is why Dan McKellar was ousted after just a year in charge. His compatriot replacement is adamant he can revive the Tigers’ title ambitions, in what may be his sole campaign. Cheika believes he has the talent at his disposal to reach the play-offs.
‘All the players and all our fans want us to target being winners,’ he says. ‘We have a good roster (squad). I’ve got to know guys who would have been my enemies in the past. We won’t be anywhere near the finished product on day one. But I want them to be physical, have a really good work ethic and be ready for the fight. I want people to see, ‘Oh, these lads are up for it’.’
With Cheika around, that is a bare-minimum expectation. Exeter and the rest will be on alert. Johnson and all the other club grandees will go into this season with renewed hope.
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