URC side enter ring in bid to land Richard Cockerill

Benetton Treviso are the latest club to speak to in-demand former England assistant coach Richard Cockerill and have emerged as serious rivals to Brive for his signature.

Treviso are looking for a new head coach, with Callum MacRae leaving the United Rugby Championship outfit at the end of the season to join Dan McFarland at Newcastle Red Bulls.

Cockerill, 55, who has been looking for another job since he was sacked as head coach of Georgia and the Black Lions before Christmas, has been linked with a number of jobs since then.

RugbyPass revealed that he was in the running to join Stuart Lancaster, who is looking for a scrum coach at Connacht, but talks never really progressed past the initial stage.

He then became the shock favourite to become Brive’s new head coach after they failed to lure Joe El-Abd away from Steve Borthwick’s England coaching staff.

The Pro D2 side are looking for a new boss, with sporting director Pierre-Henry Broncan set to take over Cockerill’s former job with the Georgian national team at the end of the season.

It was widely assumed that he would throw his hat into the ring at both Gloucester and Harlequins, but they are both understood to be looking elsewhere while he looks abroad.

The former England hooker Cockerill speaks good French from the two years he spent at Montferrand, now ASM Clermont Auvergne, from 2002 to 2004.

He has worked as head coach in France at Toulon in 2017 and at Montpellier in 2023, and being free from any contractual obligations was a major appeal to Brive bosses when they spoke to him last month.

But Treviso, who are 11th in the URC table with 21 points and play the Dragons away on 28 February after returning from a mid-season break, have become a threat that could torpedo Brive’s plans.