Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Cheika's Montpellier move set to be fast tracked?

Michael Cheika and Vern Cotter

Michael Cheika’s switch to the Top 14 and Montpellier could come sooner than expected – RugbyPass understands

ADVERTISEMENT

In October the former Wallabies coach announced he will not seek reappointment after Australia were knocked out at the quarter-final stage of the World Cup by Eddie Jones’ England.

The 52-year-old left the Wallabies with a bang, burning his bridges with Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle as he went.

Within days the former Randwick No8 was linked with the role of director of rugby at Montpellier where he would oversee head coach Xavier Garbajosa as Scott Johnson did over him in the Wallabies set-up.

It would see him ultimately replace Vern Cotter, whose contract is set to end in June 2020. Cotter was ‘moved upstairs’ from head coach to director of rugby last May.

(Continue reading below…)

Video Spacer

One source close to the club has told RugbyPass that not only is the move being spoken about within the club as a done deal, but that Cheika could arrive at the Altrad Stadium as soon as January.

Sparks could fly between the notoriously fiery Cheika and Garbajosa, the 32-cap French international winger who – before Montpellier – had spent four years at La Rochelle.

ADVERTISEMENT

Cheika himself made no bones about the fact that he didn’t like operating under a DoR at the Wallabies, saying: “Scott’s a lovely bloke and I get on fine with him, but I’m sort of not really into that type of thing.”

How Cheika goes with the boot on the other foot in the often conflict-orientated Top 14 remains to be seen. The Australian is – however – well versed in the French way of doing things having spent three years in France as an amateur player in the late 1980s and early 1990s and having served time as DoR at Stade Francais from 2010 to 2012 following his Heineken Cup-winning stint at Leinster.

Montpellier owner Mourad Altrad will certainly be interested in the leverage Cheika can bring to the club, namely the ability to entice Wallabies to the Herault.

He successfully lured props Stan Wright and Heinke van der Merwe from Leinster to Stade and his influence with the current crop of Wallabies will no doubt prove a mouth-watering prospect.

ADVERTISEMENT

WATCH: The RugbyPass documentary with Fijian legend Nemani Nadolo who is playing for Montpellier 

Video Spacer

 

 

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 1 hour ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

33 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Let's be real about these All Blacks Let's be real about these All Blacks
Search