THE LEADING MAN
Cheika’s magic touch has healed Aussie unrest and created a dominant force
IT’S one heck of a back story, certainly. The son of Lebanese immigrants who made millions in the fashion industry, the hard- as- nails former No 8 who speaks fluent French, Italian and Arabic, Michael Cheika brings plenty of colour to this World Cup party.
The life experiences of this working- class kid from Coogee, New South Wales, now a wealthy and well-travelled winner at club level, have helped make the man seeking to lead Australia on a remarkable journey from chaos to kings of the world in just a year.
To focus on one man’s exotic background and larger-than-life personality, though, is to miss the point. Scotland won’t be playing the Cheika legend when they take to the field at Twickenham on Sunday. They’ll be trying to outfox, outwit and out-think one of the sharpest coaches in the business.
If his status as the only head coach to have won both the Heineken Cup and Super Rugby championship doesn’t convince, then the job he has done with Australia certainly does.
Tactician, tyrant, counsellor and communicator in turn, Cheika has healed the internal divisions and silenced the squabbling that made the Wallabies, of all teams, such a soft touch in recent times. The results have been remarkable. Remember what a shambles they were just 11 months ago? Predecessor Ewen McKenzie’s resignation, amid lurid allegations, midway through a post-match press conference created inevitable turmoil.
A week away from their autumn tour of Europe, Australia found themselves without a boss, mired in a number of side scandals — and f ast earning a reputation as undisciplined uncoachables.
Enter Cheika, with a promise to rebuild and a plan to implement. He shouldered the burden, acted as a s hield from the criticism provoked when they lost to England, Ireland and France — and convinced his players to buy into his blueprint for recovery.
Arriving at this World Cup ranked second in the world, t heir performances in topping Pool A — ahead of Wales and an eliminated England — have created so much excitement back home that, to quote one veteran Wallabies observer: ‘ We’re going to need a bigger bandwagon.’
Few dispute that this recovery is mainly down to Cheika, a guy whose methods veer from blind fury — he once smashed the glass door of his coaches’ box during a game — to intuitive intelligence.
‘He is the one yelling and screaming any time we’re not right on it — every day in every drill,’ admits Aussie stand-off Bernard Foley. ‘But he’s al so a great communicator, someone who knows how to simplify things and make us understand what he wants.
‘Above all, he’s very open and honest. Players appreciate that more than anything, being told something straight. That’s what we get from him.’
As a coach with home club Randwick, Leinster, Stade Francais and New South Wales Waratahs, Cheika earned something of a reputation for gimmicks.
There have been visual aids such as a stick drawing and the words ‘Poker Face’ scrawled on a piece of paper, just to remind players not to get drawn into sledging during a typically volatile derby, something of an irony given his own expertise in this area during his playing days.
He also once handed his players golf clubs before a game with an instruction to ‘ tee off ’ on the opposition, Kurtley Beale explaining: ‘It was about letting it go, really swinging it and not giving a damn about anything else.’
Everything he does, though, is about creating a bond. That’s why, despite being far removed from his prime, he used to j oin i n the toughest parts of pre-season training with the Waratahs, pounding up and down the infamous South Coogee Stairs — all 210 of them — in sweltering heat.
Cheika was smart enough, upon t aking t he Australia j ob, to recognise that building club-style unity within the national team wouldn’t be as simple as all that. So he came up with a solution that, l i ke most clever answers, now seems blindingly simple.
Waratahs captain Dave Dennis, explaining how the new Wallabies gaffer would deliberately hold squad get-togethers the day after those big — and often bloody — Super Rugby derby games, said: ‘It was about getting a better connection between the players and breaking down barriers.
‘Previously, there had been a bit of a disconnect between the players and you can’t have that at national level. You need everyone on the same page and working towards a common goal.
‘What Cheika does to build that trust and that connection between players is bring it back to the simple things — hard work and honesty.
‘Although you’re bashing each other during Super Rugby, it was about being able to sit down and understand each other, to say: “Well, hang on. We’re going to be in the same team in a couple of months.”
‘The best way to do that is to spend time with people, face to face, interact, have a feed together. You’re my enemy during Super Rugby and you’re my team-mate now — that was what had been lacking with the Wallabies.
‘ It’s a very hard dynamic to achieve, to spend seven months of the year belting the crap out of each other, then go and play for
He is the one screaming any time we are not right on it — every day in every drill
each other that weekend. It’s human nature for there to be a bit of tension.
‘If you look at the cohesion of the group now, look at how they fight for each other and throw their bodies on the line, it’s obvious Cheika has turned it around. What a transformation it has been.’
That Dennis still speaks so warmly of his old boss, despite being cut from the World Cup squad at the very death by Cheika, says a great deal. Like so many managers with fearsome reputations for blowing up — ‘I never put it on, when it happens, it’s for real,’ he insists — the 48-year- old is almost revered by his players.
That is partly because he has let them in on his master plan, inviting them to feel part of something bigger than themselves. Getting a group of 1999 World Cup winners to make personal phone calls informing the current group of their selection was more than just a PR stunt — it reinforced the message at the core of his reign.
On match day, the result has been that all the old skills and rediscovered discipline have been underpinned by something just as important — a unity that makes men do remarkable t hings, whatever the odds.
That’s what makes Cheika a great coach. That’s what Scotland have to overcome at Twickenham.