Under the leadership of Cockerill and the now departed Pat Howard, Tigers came close to winning an historic treble last season, having picked up both the EDF Energy Cup and the Guinness Premiership, before falling at the final hurdle in their quest for European success.
Having now been appointed to the take charge of the club until Marcelo Loffreda's arrival after the World Cup, Cockerill has again set lofty targets for his players.
"Nothing really changes just because we won some silverware last year," says Cockerill. "Defending trophies is something we've done successfully before. We go into every competition and every game looking to win it. Pat set the standard last year - we wanted to win every trophy. We didn't quite make it and there's a reason for that - because it's very hard to do - but we weren't very far away.
"As a club going forward, we can't have ambitions of doing less than we did the year before, so we're going to try and win every trophy. If you don't set your targets high, then you're never going to get there. We're not going to prioritise trophies - we're going to try and win all of them. Is that realistic? We don't know, but we're a big club with a lot of expectation on our shoulders and a good squad so we have to set those standards for ourselves."
Saturday's match in Bayonne is the club's penultimate warm-up fixture, with the final preparations taking place against Montauban at Welford Road on Saturday, September 8, kick-off 3pm. For ticket information, pop down to Welford Road in person, contact the Tigers ticket office on 08701 28 34 30 or book online at www.leicestertigers.com
