‘It’s a shame’ – The one regret Ben Youngs has after Michael Cheika guides Leicester to the Premiership final
Ben Youngs looks on during Leicester's semi-final win over Sale
Ben Youngs has revealed the one regret he has about Leicester ahead of the seventh Premiership final appearance in his stellar playing career.
The ex-England and British and Irish Lions scrum-half is hanging up his boots at the age of 35, but that planned exit isn’t the thing that has him feeling sad ahead of next Saturday’s Allianz showpiece.
Instead, his only downside to next weekend’s final versus Bath in London is that the match will be the last Leicester will play with Michael Cheika as their head coach. Having taken charge last summer, the Australian announced in January that he would only spend a single season at Welford Road as he planned to head home to his family in Australia at the end of the 2024/25 campaign.
That left Leicester having to go back into the recruitment market and while they have appointed ex-Tigers forward Geoff Parling as their new boss, a position he will start when his Lions tour commitments with the Wallabies finish, Youngs admitted it is a wrench that Cheika is quitting.
“Has done a remarkable job…”
“You just want someone to come in with some presence, someone you can believe in straight away and he is certainly that,” said Youngs, speaking about Cheika during a TNT Sports interview following Saturday’s semi-final win over Sale.
“He captivated the group immediately. He has been there, has done it, is someone who you can get behind straight away. What a guy. It’s a shame it’s only one year – but he has done a remarkable job with the season.”
So brilliant has Cheika been that Youngs classed him as one of the best coaches he has ever come across. That is quite a compliment when you consider that the long-serving scrum-half debuted with Leicester in the 2006/07 Premiership season and was first capped by England in March 2010 before touring with the 2013 Lions.
“You don’t know what it is going to look like at the end,” he said, referencing his impending retirement from playing. “I have been fortunate to stay fit. We have given ourselves a shot and I’ll enjoy this week.
“Michael Cheika has been phenomenal. Honestly, one of the best coaches I have come across. What a guy. He has been here for one season and honestly, I feel so lucky. I nearly canned it last year. I’m so lucky that I did another year. Genuinely. I am so glad to have done another year. He has been absolutely awesome.
“This group, we will work on the belief, and we will build towards it [the final]. To go there alone, it’s a magnificent stadium to play at but we are going there to win. That will be the message. We have got some great leaders, Handre Pollard, guys like that, we’ll go after them [Bath].”
The soon-to-exit Cheika paid tribute to the retiring Youngs in his post-game TV interview, saying: “He has been exceptional for me personally to get to know who the club is and also around the club as well. We have still got another week of him playing now, so that is good for everybody.”
The head coach added that he loved the closeness of Saturday’s 21-16 win over Sale, despite the tension it created.
“You still get nervous, but you do enjoy it when it gets tough,” he enthused. “There is a part of you inside that knows being a footballer that you love that tight battle even though you would like to be out in front by way more in front. The theatre that it brings.
“It is a test because I actually thought we played really good, and we still couldn’t get away from them. It shows how good Sale were, how much fight they had. They exemplify their coach (Alex Sanderson), and we have had great battles with that team this year.
“You have got to look at performance and the things we wanted to play on the day, what we wanted to bring. If we were coming consistently – and we were – I felt like that would either take the juice out of the other team or we’d get pain from that in the second half.
“They lifted their game; we didn’t drop but we didn’t lift our game to go with their game. They got back in it, but we hung strong at the end which was great.”
