Michael Cheika’s three must-fixes after Leicester Tigers appointment including their ‘lacklustre attack’

Leicester Tigers have officially confirmed the appointment of Michael Cheika as their new head coach, but the experienced Australian has plenty of things to fix at Mattioli Woods Welford Road.

The Tigers limped to an eighth-place finish in the Premiership last season and ended the campaign with just two wins from their final eight games in all competitions. To rub salt into the wound, they also lost the Premiership Rugby Cup final in that run.

This poor patch ultimately brought an end to Dan McKellar’s tenure at Welford Road, but it’s now up to Cheika to pick up the pieces.

But what will his first priorities be? Here is an in-depth look at Cheika’s in-tray.

Attacking reset

Leicester‘s main issue under McKellar was their attack, and this will undoubtedly be top of Cheika’s list.

The Tigers boasted one of the best defences in the Premiership last season, only conceding 51 tries in the league (joint top with Sale Sharks); but they ranked consistently low in the attacking stats. They scored the third lowest tries (55), and also ranked third from bottom in carries (2002) and defenders beaten (366).

Leicester also scored the fourth lowest number of points in the league (435) and made the fourth lowest visits into the opposition 22 (151).

The STAGGERING Leicester Tigers statistic as Michael Cheika joins Premiership club

The appointment of experienced attack coach Peter Hewat could be the spark they need, but Cheika will need to find a way to get Leicester’s attack firing.

They have players who can cause some proper damage to an opposition defence, with the likes of Ollie Hassell-Collins, Handre Pollard, Solomone Kata, Freddie Steward and Anthony Watson all adding plenty of quality to their backline. Up front, George Martin, Ollie Chessum and Tommy Reffell all provide some serious punch in the pack, too.

Leicester have a brilliant squad, but Cheika and Hewat will need to really transform their attack if they want to return to English rugby’s top table.

New scrum coach

Yesterday, it was confirmed scrum coach Dan Palmer would be leaving his post following the departure of McKellar, but this leaves Cheika needing to bring in a man of his own to the role.

Neil Fowkes, the senior academy forwards coach, will take charge of this in the interim, but they need to speed up their search for a permanent replacement for Palmer. The quicker they can fill this post – even if they give the job to Fowkes full-time, who has experience in this position following his time at Wasps – the better, as they can then build their scrum moving forward into the season.

The scrum is starting to become a tad more fashionable again – despite World Rugby’s attempts to de-weaponise it – but Leicester are a club that know the importance of a dominant scrum, so they need to really get this going forward with a new coach at the helm.

Fixing up discipline

Whilst the headlines will be dominated by Leicester’s lacklustre attack, their discipline really hampered them in tight games.

They were properly in games against Bristol Bears and Northampton Saints prior to seeing players sent off, and their win over Newcastle Falcons also saw three players sent to the sin-bin in one game.

Leicester also conceded far too many penalties, often giving away 10+ a game, which killed any real chance for them to win tight games.

If the Tigers want to repeat their title heroics from two years ago this coming season, they need to fix up their discipline.

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