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Leicester strengthen cross-code links
By Jon Newcombe
Some St Helens RLFC players have been spending time with Leicester Tigers as part of a relationship-building exercise between the two clubs.
Tigers head coach Michael Cheika has a lifelong passion for rugby league and was linked with several NRL coaching jobs before agreeing to join the Tigers on a one-plus-one deal.
Operating across both codes is nothing new to the Australian, who coached Lebanon at the UK-based Rugby League World Cup in 2022 while coaching Argentina.
Recently, Cheika has spent time with England RL as a guest of head coach Shaun Wane, and it was while he was back in the north-west, at Leicester's game against Sale Sharks on Sunday, that the link with St Helens was revealed.
“We had a couple of lads in – Moses Mbye was in from St Helens and I know a few of the other lads are coming in over different periods over the next few weeks so it’s good for us to learn from someone different as well," Cheika told the Love Rugby League website.
Mbye is a high-quality versatile player who can feature at hooker, centre, half, or fullback, but has no background in rugby union and is not thought to be considering a cross-code move even though his future at Saints is subject to speculation.
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Latest Comments
With Taylor? Because one of the key problems they have is tracking performance, which is why I liked your idea of staff going with players. I was mainly concerned with the staff tracking the progress of the player, but I guess it might be just as useful to decline LOL
And I suppose when it's a 33 yo that goes, they might also have a thought to transitioning to coaching themselves, so that time spent overseas paired with a coach you know could help that transition too.
Otherwise just the other obvious point that Taylor is only really going to benefit fiscally (unless it's a less preferable league like Japan were it may help extend his playing window to include a WC etc) from such a move, so with you're Idea I just think it more beneficial for a player like Taylor to have already been overseas, around a similar age to Aumua, 27.
Go to commentsI don't think it's semantics - birthplace is just a poor way to assess these things. It's especially awkward with the close relationships and open borders within the UK and Ireland. Josh Adams is a foreign born player by that metric and the man is a native Welsh speaker.
Apart from that I agree with everything you've said there; Ireland is a team past their peak right now.
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