‘ Players pick best club for their wallets now, not for ’ rugby their
Axed by Leicester a year ago, Richard Cockerill still swears by loyalty
IT takes approximately six seconds for Richard Cockerill to forget about the swearing warning he received from the HR department at Edinburgh Rugby. ‘F***ing hell!’ he says, in reaction to a news article linking Mike Ford to the vacant coaching job at Northampton. The snag is that a picture of Cockerill — an arch enemy of the club in question — has mistakenly been used as the main image.
‘ Poor old Fordy; poor b******! S***… I’m not sure me and Northampton would be a great fit!’
Almost a year has passed since Cockerill was sacked by Leicester but he still bleeds the club colours.
‘As fierce as the Leicester Northampton rivalry is, I feel sorry for Jim Mallinder,’ he says. ‘He was there for 10 years and achieved a hell of a lot. People in sport forget things very quickly.
‘I spent 23 years at Leicester and on January 1, 2017, they told me not to come back the next day. Everything stops. Until it actually happens, you don’t really realise all the consequences.’
For Cockerill, the consequences were eased by a swift transition. Four days after his sacking, he was hired by Ford at Toulon on a shortterm deal and now his family have relocated to Scotland.
‘Going to Toulon was good therapy for me,’ he says. ‘I left school when I was 16 and made cabinets for a living. Now I’m 47 and I’ve never not had a day’s work. I needed to find another job as quickly as possible because that’s what I do. It wasn’t a financial decision to join Toulon because whatever I got paid was just taken off my severance package at Leicester. Some people were saying, “Why not take six months off and sit on a beach?” That’s not what I’m about.’
The turbulent year has taken him from the Midlands to the Mediterranean to Myreside. Cockerill was sacked in the name of reinvention but any sense of bitterness has now subsided.
He reached the Top 14 final and has learned the hard way about trusting his own convictions.
‘When you get sacked, it’s generally because people don’t think you’re good enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll be forever grateful to Mike for giving me that opportunity at Toulon. I went there and made a success out of a difficult season. That proved a few things to a few people.
‘ Of course, you feel slightly aggrieved but that’s only natural. I’ve had that conversation with Lewis Moody, Martin Castrogiovanni, Ben Kay, Martin Corry when it comes to the end. When it’s your turn, it’s your turn. You’d prefer to leave on your own terms, but I’m at ease with it now.
‘ At the end of it all, Leicester made me the person I am today. There were one or two bad times but hundreds of good times. I’m proud of my time there. It will always be a special place to me.
‘Could some people have behaved in a better way? Yeah, probably, but that’s life. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have listened to one or two people in the background. I would have stuck to my guns. People always want to evolve but those people generally are the people that have never done it and don’t really understand it. They learn most things from books. Moving forward, I’ll trust my gut instinct and I won’t water things down. When you become the person who’s not calling the shots 100 per cent of the time, you end up in the position I ended up in.’
Since arriving i n Edinburgh, Cockerill has suffered no fools gladly. The hard-nosed, hard graft ethos has been doubled. Sunday training has been introduced and young skipper Marcus Bradbury was stripped of the captaincy and suspended after injuring himself on a night out. The results have followed. Star signing Robbie Fruean was forced into retirement with health problems but the side have overcome the challenges.
‘Basically, we have a load of public school boys who are too soft,’ said Cockerill. ‘ They win every game in sixth form and they’re told how great they are. It’s just a very comfortable place.
‘When you get to the professional system, it’s unforgiving. Suddenly you’re not winning everything and you need to work f***ing hard. Just because you’re Scottish and you’re a half-decent player doesn’t mean you’re automatically going to get your contract rolled over.
‘I’d like to spend Sunday with my wife and kids, too. If you don’t want to be part of it, go somewhere else. Edinburgh been a bottom four team for too long.’
This Sunday, however, Cockerill is likely to be sitting in front of his TV watching Leicester versus Saracens. Both clubs need a pick up and Cockerill said of Leicester: ‘The landscape has changed since the golden era of Martin Johnson.
‘That was 15 years ago. Things have changed. Now people play for different reasons. Players 10 years ago didn’t think about the money.
‘Now young guys might not go to the best place for their rugby, they’ll go to the best place for their wallet. I understand that but with Leicester, I think the expectation outweighs the reality. There are teams out there with more money. If they could afford to lose £5million a year it might be different.
‘They have to recruit smartly. We signed Ellis Genge for about 50p, paid Logovi’i Mulipola £100 a week on trial and picked up Telusa Veianu when he couldn’t get a gig. Then contract renewal comes and their market value is five times that so you can’t sign star players.
‘What’s the answer? Get a job as an agent — it’s much easier than being a coach!’