SOME people are placed upon this earth to be the sidekick, the little guy, the metaphorical bag carrier for the main man. Now it appears that one second in command has his sights set higher because, after being back-up to three Leicester coaches in Pat Howard, Marcelo Loffreda and Heyneke Meyer, one of the Tigers favourite sons, Richard Cockerill, has led his team to the Heineken Cup final at the first time of asking.
In recent weeks, the England giants have knocked Munster off their habitual perch at the top of the Eurorugby.com rankings. Yesterday afternoon they competed in their fifth consecutive Guinness Premiership final at Twickenham and next Saturday they w
ill contest their fifth European Cup final. If they find a way past the Dubliners' dogged resistance at Murrayfield, the Tigers will match Toulouse's record of three European crowns.
Cockerill was recently awarded the Guinness Premiership Coach of the Year prize; not bad for a coach who was finally confirmed in the top job only after his team defeated Bath in the Heineken quarter-finals.
Slice the voluble coach open – and many have wanted to do exactly that over the years – and Cockerill's blood will run green and white. He is as thoroughly steeped in Welford Road lore as any man alive so it is all the more surprising that the side he coaches actually plays attractive rugby.
After years of boring the opposition into the ground with a big forward pack, the Tigers have been a breath of fresh air under the tutelage of their former hooker.
Against Cardiff in that epic semi-final, it was the English team that played most if the rugby. Time and again they broke the Blues' first-up defence with traffic approaching from all angles, and this from the side that built its reputation on route one rugby.
It hasn't been the only sea-change to have taken place, as Cockerill admits. His own character has undergone an abrupt make-over after learning a few key lessons during the last World Cup when he had effective charge of the club in Loffreda's enforced absence.
"I wanted to be in charge of everything," he concedes. "To tell everyone what to do and have it done exactly the way I wanted it done. But it doesn't work like that. You end up annoying everybody all the time and it wears you out as an individual.
"Maybe it was about my insecurity. I needed to say, 'I'm in charge. You'll do as I say'. If people weren't like me and didn't do things my way I thought it was wrong. Now I can deal with players who have dyed hair and wear white boots, who laugh and joke before games, but who turn up and play well. I am a lot more tolerant of things that would have been unacceptable to me as a player."
The pugnacious little warrior once went nose to nose with Norm Hewitt during an All Black Haka in his own none-too-friendly version of the Maori greeting, but he has obviously mellowed some since those days.
The Leicester boss admits that, while he keeps a little distance from the current squad, some Tigers are not averse to pulling their coach's tail. He recently handed Ben Kay his hand-written lineout codes and the giant England lock gave them back complete with spelling corrections.
Cockerill talks at some length about the character of the Leicester players, insisting that, when he ventures into the transfer market, he is looking at the man as much as he is the player and he's picked up a few good 'uns in the process. French scrumhalf Julien Dupuy was not rated particularly highly at Biarritz, but he was good enough to keep the Lions' scrumhalf Harry Ellis bench-bound in yesterday's Guinness final and now he is said to be a target for Stade Francais.
Leicester have so much more experience at the business end of the Heineken Cup than their Dublin rivals that the English club will start as clear favourites.
They approach next weekend's final with just one confirmed Lion, and even he is starting on the bench, but you wouldn't bet against Cockerill's men displaying the same fighting spirit that marked out their coach in his playing days… and a lot more intelligence.
The full article contains 735 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
