Cheika, Francis in war of words

Australia coach Michael Cheika has reacted irately to comments by former Irish lock Neil Francis in which he described David Pocock as a cancer on the game. In the process this possibly re-opened old wounds from Cheika’s time as Leinster coach, when Francis labelled the team ‘ladyboys’ during the pool stages of the 2008-09 Heineken Cup, before they went on to win the first of their European titles that season.

Following Leinster’s defeat in the fourth round away to Castres, Francis wrote: “It was a disgraceful, gutless, leaderless, spineless performance.” Cheika clearly hasn’t forgotten.

“That guy needs to choose his words a little better I think, to be honest. It’s not a very nice thing to say,” said Cheika when the comment was put to him.

When it was pointed out to Cheika that Francis went on to say he had grudging admiration for him, this cut little ice with the Wallabies coach.

“I’m not worried about what he thinks about Poey’s footy, I just think that’s not a very nice term to use. There’s people who are really sick out there. I’m not into that. “He used to say a lot of stuff about us when I coached Leinster as well. Some unflattering words he would use for his own publicity. That’s fine. One thing to say you want to

Ireland:

15 Rob Kearney, 14 Andrew Conway, 13 Garry Ringrose, 12 Robbie Henshaw, 11 Keith Earls, 10 Johnny Sexton, 9 Conor Murray, 8 CJ Stander, 7 Dan Leavy, 6 Peter O’Mahony (c), 5 James Ryan, 4 Devin Toner, 3 Tadhg Furlong, 2 Niall Scannell, 1 Cian Healy. 16 Rob Herring, 17 Jack McGrath, 18 Andrew Porter, 19 Tadhg Beirne, 20 Jordi Murphy, 21 John Cooney, 22 Joey Carbery, 23 Jordan Larmour. not someone who likes the spotlight,” said Springboks boss Rassie Erasmus. “However, his contribution to Springbok rugby during the past decade has been enormous and I want to congratulate him on reaching 100 Test caps for South Africa.