Leicester’s director of rugby, Michael Cheika, has questioned the decision to suspend him for disrespecting an independent match doctor last month, insisting he did little wrong and that the case had left him wondering if he is truly welcome in English club rugby. He has also suggested the Rugby Football Union’s disciplinary system could be revised and hit back at claims Leicester do not prioritise player welfare.
Cheika has now served his ban for mounting “a persistent challenge” to the independent doctor after two Tigers players were mistakenly sent back on to the field against Exeter on the Premiership’s opening weekend when both should have been removed permanently under current concussion protocols. Leicester have opted not to appeal but Cheika remains upset by the decision of a disciplinary panel to give him a one-match ban with a further match suspended.
“I would be lying if I didn’t say I was really disappointed,” said Cheika, who spent the weekend in Paris with his wife – “You can’t let the powers-that-be stop you from having a good time, can you?” – rather than travelling with his team to Saturday’s game against Newcastle. “I felt the decision wasn’t right and it hurts my reputation ... I almost felt like they don’t really want me to be in the league here.
“I don’t want to go on about it too much. I’m an honest person. If I do something wrong then I’ll take the consequences. But I felt like I’d generally done nothing wrong. Initially I didn’t want to participate at all in the judicial process. I didn’t think it was fair, considering we had three people there vouch for what I said.”
The judgment found mistakes were made by two doctors on duty which resulted in Ollie Chessum and Solomone Kata playing on, with Kata then being sent off after he should have been removed and Chessum subsequently required to serve a 12-day stand-down period after being wrongly allowed back on. The independent doctor later alleged Cheika had been “rude and confrontational” and “overly aggressive in his body language”.
The former Australia and Argentina head coach, however, insisted he was not the central villain of the episode. “The important part of the process is what happened on the field. Two players went back out when they weren’t supposed to and these are decisions I am not making. There’s been an inference that we didn’t care about Ollie Chessum’s wellbeing. That’s the first thing I care about. [Last month] Tommy Whiteley got a knock at training which we could easily have not reported if we didn’t want to. But we took it really seriously and that’s how we look after our players here.”
Cheika was also keen to defend the Leicester team doctor who was on duty. “It was inferred that our doctor was junior. They mentioned that she’d only officiated as the doctor at a couple of women’s games, which is absolutely not correct. She’s been doing senior team games since the Covid period ... she does a good job for us. It’s important to maintain the credibility of our doctor.”
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While Cheika would not be drawn on whether the credibility of the game was being undermined by such incidents – “I don’t want to disrespect the process in any way, shape or form – mainly because I don’t want to risk getting in trouble again” – he does believe tweaks to the existing disciplinary process could be considered. “It’s interesting that rugby has never gone and had a look at what NRL is doing regarding accruing points and then fines and bans are assigned around how many points you have. There’s an integrated system and then you’re able to contest if you want. It’s a little more regular. It really seemed to plateau out some of the really controversial ones in the NRL. It will be interesting to see if any of the unions pick that up at any stage.”
England, meanwhile, have confirmed Kevin Sinfield will remain part of the national team’s coaching staff on a reduced part-time basis until 2027. Sinfield, however, is otherwise engaged on a speaking tour this November and is set to miss England’s games against Australia and Japan. The British & Irish Lions have also announced details of a new player agreement for the 2025 tour to Australia which will see a portion of distributable post-tour profits shared among squad members.