Michael Cheika: 'There is still always the time to rip into someone'

Michael Cheika has explained why he isn’t shy in giving Leicester players a verbal spray in the same confrontational way he would have done two decades ago at Leinster. The Australian was a coaching rookie when he was handed the opportunity to transform the Irish province in 2005, turning them from also-rans into European champions at the end of his fourth season in 2009.

Now aged 57 with a wealth of coaching experience under his belt, including guiding the Wallabies to the 2015 Rugby World Cup final and Argentina to the semi-finals in 2023, Cheika has linked up with Leicester for the 2024/25 season on a one-year deal following the sacking of his fellow countryman Dan McKellar after an eighth-place league finish.

The 2022 Gallagher Premiership champions are currently fourth under Cheika with six wins in 10 outings ahead of the completion of their Investec Champions Cup pool with fixtures at home this Saturday to Ulster and away to Toulouse on January 19.

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Ahead of hosting Richie Murphy’s Irish side, Cheika has given a fascinating near 30-minute interview to The Counter Ruck, The Irish Times’ rugby podcast hosted by Nathan Johns and former Ireland and Leinster midfielder Gordon D’Arcy.

Amongst the topics discussed at length by Cheika was whether he is different now at Leicester compared to his rumbustious reputation for revving up players at Leinster in the mid-noughties. “Very much same principles without a doubt, and I’ve evolved and changed and learned lots,” he reckoned.

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“Talk to the boys here (at Tigers), those things that happened there (at Leinster) are still happening here. Human make-up, as much as we change as far as what type of behaviour is acceptable and everything being a little more PC and respectful – and I’m on board with all of that stuff. But there is still always the time to rip into someone in the right way because you care about them.

“Not because you want to hurt them, hurt their feelings. It’s actually because you like them and you want them to be better, you want the team to be better. I don’t think there is a place for disdain and that type of stuff but that is the time you can use emotion.

“There is a lot of talk about leadership, a lot of talk about the blue or red head, are you going to be more logical or emotional? It’s more purple, to be honest. You need both, when to use one cue and when to use the other. And you can get it wrong sometimes but if you are getting that right more often you can help effect and impression more of the guys to think, ‘Okay, how can I start making changes?’

“Because what you are trying to do is use the intrinsic motivation initially, the part that is coming from the outside and let that transform into intrinsic motivation from the players. So giving them a rev-up from the outside, in layman’s talk, and they start staying to themselves, ‘I am going to rev myself up from the inside because that has made me think about something’.

“The lads at Leinster from that era, that worked really well there. I gave them some messages and some they really took on and drove themselves and that is probably why I left in the end. The time came where I needed to evolve because this team had evolved well and truly out of my original wheelhouse, so did I want to keep changing? I could have, I really considered it. Or do they need a different type of person now because of the way that they are as people, what they have become as a team?’

Cheika exited Leinster in 2010 having laid the solid foundation that Joe Schmidt then built on with two more Heineken Cup successes, and his brief at Leicester is to implement a similarly sound footing. “I have been involved in turnarounds, teams that have been struggling and they need to turn the direction around,” he explained.

“I feel like I can fix my identity a little bit around who I am and Leicester is a team in the same situation otherwise they wouldn’t have got rid of their coach. I felt like there is definitely a parallel there in relation to how do I turn this team around, how do I transform, what are the things I need to do?

“It’s a different type of runway around how long I have got to get into that project, different type of playing roster as well to what we would have had at Leinster originally. But the same principles apply and it’s about getting people to believe in themselves.

? Through the years v @UlsterRugby pic.twitter.com/oeU7ra5bVK

— Leicester Tigers (@LeicesterTigers) January 8, 2025

“Obviously you have got to have all the technical and strategical elements as well but getting people to believe in themselves so they can succeed and believe in their teammates and trust their teammates and the coaching etc that they can help them succeed and then driving that intrinsic motivation that keeps you coming back when you are down or fighting in games to stay alive and then understanding success as well and what it takes to be successful.”

Asked why he is known in the business as the turnaround man, Cheika attributed it to be Lebanese heritage while growing up in Sydney. “I wouldn’t have been brought up as a rugby kid,” he said. “We came to Australia as immigrants so rugby league was more the working class game back then.

“Randwick was down the road and I literally started playing (union) because I thought I could get a free trip overseas one day because they play rugby overseas which is what happened, I went and played in France when I was 21.

“I have always been an outsider I suppose. Even when I coached Australia I felt like an outsider. I don’t know why, it’s my own perception and it may not be real even but I like that challenge, I like that hardship and I don’t mind owning the problems from before.

“If you are going to come to a club for a turnaround, you have got to make sure you own the things from before. You can’t say before they did this or they were doing that. You have always got to say ‘we’ and you are part of that because that is part of your history.

“I’m part of the club, the club has got a history, part of that history hasn’t been the greatest. Okay, I have got to own that and do my best to turn that around, not disassociate myself from that. You have got to own everything because you have players here who were part of it (before my time).”