In Defence of Michael Cheika, the Least Boring Man in Rugby

Michael Cheika is always getting hassled for his passionate outbursts. Hayden Donnell argues the Wallabies coach is good for the game.

Michael Cheika blasted one of his players for being an idiot last weekend. Will Skelton could have cost Australia the match against Scotland after earning a late yellow card, and his coach had feelings about it, telling media, “He doesn’t have to do it. We had our own penalty, it’s after the whistle and it wasn’t clever”. It was a more direct quote than just about any Robbie Deans has given in his career, and it was probably the least interesting thing Cheika has said in weeks.

The foul-mouthed Wallabies coach is a rugby anomaly. Many of the game’s top figures are aggressively boring. The greatest player of all time, Richie McCaw, spent 16 years giving interviews without actually saying anything. Most current international captains follow his patented media model. Coaches are little better. All Blacks mastermind Steve Hansen may be a fence post posing as a human. Newly assigned Lions coach Warren Gatland could be the most miserable man in the world. Every shot of his coaching box is like a sneak peek into the centre of hell.

And that’s saying nothing of John Mitchell.

There aren’t many scandals for fans to get worked up about either. Whereas league is awash in borderline criminal administrators, hotel corridor shitters, and bubbling incidents, union is monastic by comparison. People praise its sedate culture, saying it shows the game is more dignified than its boozed-soaked, perpetually horned up Australian cousin. But there’s a downside to being good: you can be dull. There’s a shortage of stuff to get worked up over in rugby – no material for terrible memes or angry Facebook debates with VB-encrusted men.

Enter Michael Cheika. While most of his peers dance around anything that might be even loosely defined as “interesting”, he openly rants about everything from “bitterly disappointing” refs to his paralysing fear of clowns. When we get a look inside his commentary box, he’s nearly always letting off a string of obscenities so foul they’d be illegal in most countries.

When the camera’s not on him, he indulges in extreme violence against doors. Lately he’s expanded his routine into training, breaking his shoulder after being struck by a flying Israel Folau in training.

For his services to entertainment, Cheika is forced to endure a flood of devastating zingers and owns. He gets called “fragile” by the Sydney Morning Herald. Hassled repeatedly over his clown shame by the NZ Herald. The truth is those newspapers should be constructing gold statues of the Australian coach next to the desks of their rugby writers. Cheika is the only thing saving them from another week desperately trying to convince their subscribers to spend 10 minutes reading about Ryan Crotty being a “cerebral” player or how sides “shouldn’t underestimate” their next opponent.

Maybe he’s not the best coach ever. Maybe he’s doomed to spend the rest of his international coaching career watching his side getting wasted by the All Blacks. But wins are fleeting, gone in a week. In rugby, personality is a much rarer thing. Cheika needs to be treasured, along with his non-boring peers like David Pocock, Nigel Owens, Eddie Jones, Dylan Hartley, and the Hira Bhana Spudman.

So even if the Wallabies get caned by France, eviscerated by England, please don’t ramp up the calls to sack him. Cheika’s a character in a rugby landscape bereft of them.  A bright spark in an ocean of lifeless sadsacks. The Wallabies need him. Rugby needs him. We need him.