Here's what Leicester Tigers Head Coach Michael Cheika had to say when he faced the press ahead of the Gallagher Premiership final against Bath Rugby at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham...
On his feelings ahead of Saturday
“Who knows really. It’s a different challenge every week. But as far as having a shot at it – we’re still here. But that’s not the objective.
“The objective is to get ourselves in a frame of mind that we’re going in with a good plan and a strong belief that we will be able to deliver that.
“Most of these guys are extremely driven internally. You work hard to get yourself in a position to win the title so if you’re there you’d be mad not to take it wouldn’t you?
“Together we’ve improved our mental preparation and our mental side of our game. That resilience.
“It’s about being able to balance what is the emotional part and what is the technical part.
On his role as Head Coach
“You’ve got to have honest conversations.
“Have a fight with each other. As long as we're doing that because we’re going in the same direction and after the same thing that’s ok.
"Building up mentally is a continual work on, you’ve never arrived because as soon as you do you have another challenge to tackle. I’ve learnt a lot from this group so I hope they’ve learnt a lot from me.
On the benefits of his reputation as a coach
“That might get you someway. But, you need to have a logical argument, a logical discussion with player, you need to give them something they can learn from or grow with otherwise they’ll just lose focus, they’ll lose interest, like anything.
On whether he'll lean into the history between Leicester and Bath
“It’s not irrelevant but I wouldn’t lean into it, no. Look, history is super important, it’s the reason I came here. The history and the reputation of this club.
“That whole thing has proven to be a good decision as the relationships I've had between players, with supporters and playing at the ground has been unreal.
“We would like to achieve this for our past players, our future players, our fans, our families all that. That history is extremely important. It’s the reason why you want to play for a club, even in the professional era.
On the standard of the Gallagher Premiership
“I think the competition is like all competitions – as you get toward this end of the season, it starts to look like test matches.
“The weekend’s games had a real test match feel, the physicality, the speed – if you look at the data behind it, which I’ve seen, it looks very similar.
“Test matches are a unique entity but this competition prepares them equally as well as any others."
