I’m still best they’ve lost
But Cockerill focused on taking Edinburgh to top
RICHARD COCKERILL is looking ahead to Edinburgh’s Heineken Cup tie with Newcastle tonight and a reunion with Dean Richards.
It is a vintage Cockerill conversation, laced with irreverent humour, until the conversation turns to the pair’s old stamping ground Leicester and suddenly the mood turns a lot darker.
After eight years in charge at Welford Road, Cockerill was shown the door in January 2017 after a decree from the top to play more entertaining rugby brought with it conflict and confusion.
Since then, the biggest club in England have been through two more head coaches and are currently limping along under a caretaker in Geordan Murphy. Cockerill’s observations of the club’s decline are caustic. “Leicester will always be my club but, clearly, they need a sort out from top to bottom,” he said. “The people that employed me wanted Leicester’s game to evolve. The sad reality for me is that I wanted it to continue as it was but we tried to do that and it didn’t work.
“Be careful what you wish for.
“I don’t think Leicester have any identity about how they want to play now or know what their DNA is.
“I watch them play and it’s not a Leicester team. This Edinburgh team play more like a Leicester side than Leicester do because we work and train hard, we’ll brawl and battle for everything, we’re in at the death in every game and we have a really tough mindset.
“My own opinion is that I’m still the best person to coach that Leicester team because I understand it better than anybody.
“I’d do things very differently if I was coach but that’s done. My 100 per cent commitment will be to Edinburgh as long as I’m here.”
Almost two years into the Edinburgh project, Cockerill is beginning to go native. Waxing lyrical at Murrayfield about how the Scots are punching above their weight at club and international level, a strange thing happens to this proudest of Englishmen. “We have