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Cockers ban will present serious test for Leicester Tigers coaches

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The severity of the nine-week ban handed out to Leicester Tigers director of rugby Richard Cockerill took some people by surprise.

Only former Gloucester coach Dean Ryan has copped a similar-sized coaching ban in the modern era when he was suspended for 13 weeks for abusing a referee, in 2007.

Ryan was subjected to the same Rugby Union (RFU) Rule 5.12 as Cockerill.

It basically gives the disciplinary panel carte blanche to hand out any punishment they deem fit for the occasion, however draconian, and without 'entry-point' guidelines to lead them.

Clearly, the RFU have been keen to make an example out of Cockerill and the merits of an appeal look unlikely, on the surface.

Will Leicester risk a more severe ban in the hope of reducing the nine-week sentence by a couple of weeks?

The full written details will be fascinating.

Exactly what did Cockerill say? How much of it was directed at fourth official Stuart Terheege? Were the alleged letters of complaint from Northampton fans included in the evidence? And were national newspaper articles calling for Cockerill to be banned also used in the hearing?

While those details are still to be debated until they are published by the RFU, the effects of the punishment handed out are black and white and will present Leicester's coaching team of Paul Burke, Geordan Murphy and Richard Blaze with a baptism of fire at the start of the new season.

While the suspension will not stop Cockerill doing his day-to-day job in the week, or helping with the final preparations, it means all the decisions and media commitments on match day will be left to Burke, Blaze and Murphy.

Cockerill, meanwhile, will be allowed into the ground but can only basically have the same privileges as a paying spectator – as he did in 2009 after a four-game ban for abusing a referee.

And that means crucial decisions about when to make substitutions, who to bring on for who and what to say at half-time will be in the hands of his assistants.

Murphy is raw in that position, while Burke and Blaze, however, have both been in their positions for a number of years, have good experience and know the club and the players well.

But they will not have been charged with this amount of responsibility – especially with it coming at the start of the season too.

Media commitments are no breeze either. Cockerill has become an expert at dealing with a demanding press corps – but how to handle them and what to say will put further strain on Burke, especially, who you would imagine will take most of those post-match sessions.

All three coaches should get plenty of help from their senior player group and you would expect a siege mentality to bring the club closer together.

But Cockerill's ban will still present a serious test of the credentials of a new coaching group, void of both Cockerill and Matt O'Connor's vast experience.

Cockers ban will present serious test for Leicester Tigers coaches


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