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Premiership club stuck in relegation battle making play for Wallabies coach Michael Cheika
Off-contract Wallabies coach Michael Cheika could be leading a team in the Premiership next year if they survive the relegation battle according to a report by The Daily Mail.
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Leicester Tigers have reportedly reached out to inquire about Cheika’s availability but the reported price tag has the club weighing up whether it would be the right decision, with the cost described as ‘prohibitive’.
The Tigers sacked Australia coach Matt O’Connor after two games into the season as the club struggled to put together respectable performances, showing limited improvement from their slide last season. Assistant coach and former Tigers’ player Geordan Murphy took the reigns before being confirmed as the head coach for the rest of the season.
The club sits 10th in the Premiership after recent run of just one win in five matches, and combined with improved results for bottom team Newcastle and 11th place Worcester, is in middle of a relegation battle. The run of poor form has Leicester’s staff under pressure with Murphy quoted as saying that ‘we don’t sleep, we worry’.
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“It’s the toughest thing I have ever experienced in my life. It’s not pretty,” he told local media this week.
“This is our lives so it affects our home lives, our family lives, our personal lives. We don’t sleep. We worry. It’s a sport but it means so much to all the people involved. It is tough.
A Premiership coaching gig for Cheika would be a return to Europe where he spent much of his formative coaching years, guiding Leinster to a Heineken Cup title during his 2005-10 tenure before two years at Stade Francais. He returned to coach the NSW Waratahs in Super Rugby, winning a maiden title for the franchise in 2014.
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After taking over from Ewen McKenzie a little over 12 months out from the 2015 World Cup, Cheika quickly turned the Wallabies around to reach the Rugby World Cup final before going down to the All Blacks. Since that early form, it has not been a fruitful era as the Wallabies slumped to their worst-ever world ranking under Cheika, winning just 40 percent of their matches since 2016.
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