On a cold Monday morning in March, Leicester’s squad arrived at their weekly team meeting to one of the frights of their life. A six-metre-long python was curled up at the front of the room.
Leicester’s coaching staff arranged the visit with a local reptile centre – suffocation was the theme of the week and Geoff Parling, the club’s head coach, wanted his players to learn how a python coils its prey to prevent their chest from expanding.
‘It was this massive, real-life snake,’ reveals flanker Hanro Liebenberg. ‘There were two people there to handle it. Some of the boys were keen to touch it and take a photo with it. The rest of us were terrified and ran to the back!
‘We were playing Bristol and we wanted to suffocate them as a team. They move the ball wide to the edges so it was just about how we can contain them – suffocate them – in the middle of the field with our defence. That means we had to be aggressive off the line or they would just pass, pass, pass to the edges and make metres.
‘You’ve got to make the game plan believable and tangible so there’s always a theme going into each week. Like a python!’
Leicester won the match 33-19. It was a small checkpoint in the club’s unexpected charge towards the top of the table and another tick in Parling’s impressive debut season.
Leicester head coach Geoff Parling brought a six-meter-long python into training in March to drive home that week’s theme of suffocation
The left-field move paid off as Leicester ran out 33-19 winners over Bristol Bears
It was a small checkpoint in the club’s unexpected charge towards the top of the table and another tick in Parling’s impressive debut season
Expectations were low even having reached last season’s PREM final, after the summer departures of Ben Youngs, Dan Cole, Handre Pollard and Julian Montoya, with more than 450 international caps between them. Michael Cheika, the Australian head coach, also walked away, and it didn’t look like it would be plain sailing for his successor.
But instead, Leicester are third in the table after last week’s fiery thumping of East Midlands rivals and PREM leaders Northampton. Bath, the team that beat them in last year’s final and most people’s pick to win the title again, are only a point ahead of them in the table and await in a final-day showdown at the Rec.
‘We lost those leaders and you think, “Well, we’ve got a young group now”,’ says Liebenberg. ‘You’re always optimistic at the start of the season but that underlying fear in the back of your head is always there.
‘Geoff has been instrumental because this is a young group. The younger leaders coming through, like Ollie Chessum, Jack van Poortvliet and Freddie Steward, have been brilliant. I thought it was going to leave a big gap but those boys have really filled those holes.’
The club’s old-school hierarchy has moved on and Parling has a group of players who are ready and willing to follow orders. The likes of Finn Carnduff, Billy Searle and Charlie Bemand were asked to lead meetings during the Prem Cup windows, giving them a voice in young group that is punching above its weight.
The win over Saints last week made it eight wins out of eight at home, including a last-gasp victory over Bath in October when Searle, who had spent the previous two seasons in France, kicked the winning penalty with the clock in the red.
‘I turned up in my first week and I saw some good leadership qualities in players I didn’t know much about,’ says Parling. ‘If you tell them to do something, they get on with it. That’s a massive positive.
‘The dark side of that is that the best champion teams are slightly more self-driven and can take ownership a bit more, but it’s a big positive to start with. Everyone told me how much leadership and experience we’d lost, but actually there was a group ready to step up into that void. Oval Park (Leicester’s training ground) has basic enough rules. We get on with it.’
Last week’s fiery win over East Midlands rivals and PREM leaders Northampton has Leicester on course for a play-off spot with three games to play
Billy Searle’s nerveless 81st-minute penalty gave Leicester victory over reigning champions Bath in October. They have now won eight out of eight at Welford Road this season
Novelty themes like a snake around your feet keep players engaged, but Parling’s approach runs deeper.
As a former player between 2009 and 2015, he arrived back from Australia, where he was forwards coach for five years, with an understanding of the club and its people. He is nurturing a family-friendly environment, with players encouraged to pin up photographs of their loved ones around the team’s training base.
Tom Whiteley, the scrum-half, has become a key figure in organising team socials. He liaises with Parling over the training schedule and regularly plans gatherings for the players and their families.
‘It’s a different feel to the club compared to Steve Borthwick or Cheika,’ says Liebenberg, who is heading back to his native South Africa at the end of the season to join the Pretoria-based Bulls, following seven years at Welford Road.
‘It’s easy for us to spend time together every day but you want the rest of your family to feel part of it, too.
‘Everyone was together last Sunday, which felt a lot better after beating Northampton. Cam Henderson had a picnic in the morning for his engagement party before and then we played darts in the afternoon with two pro darters.’
Family members are always welcome around the club, with scientific research showing the presence of kids can reduce performance anxiety.
On matchdays, the sons of assistant coach Pete Hewat or strength and conditioning specialist Chris Kemp are often spotted in the dugout or tracking support staff up the touchline.
Hanro Liebenberg will return home to South Africa and the Bulls this summer after seven seasons at Welford Road
Geoff Parling’s six years as a Leicester player were crucial in allowing him to step in at short notice as head coach following Michael Cheika’s exit last summer
‘We use a couple of the lads as ball boys during the games,’ says Parling. ‘They love it, they’re helpful and I love the changing room afterwards when there are kids everywhere. It’s a pretty special thing we do here.
‘Nicky Smith’s lad, Albie, came in for a couple of days recently and just sat with the kitman in the shed. Sometimes they’re in the office. People can get worried about distractions but I think it adds to the environment. They humanise things.
‘If I thought something like that would get in the way of performance then I wouldn’t do it. This environment definitely has an edge to it. But I don’t think having an edge and having a real human side are mutually exclusive.’
Parling spends his rare downtime having golf lessons with his son at Rutland Golf Course. Realistically, it has been an all-consuming job for the 42-year-old, who arrived from the southern hemisphere at short notice but has done a fine job.
‘I’m terrible at golf. I’ve not played before and I’ve got brittle shoulders so I can’t twist,’ says Parling. ‘My three kids have settled into school pretty well. I need to see them more because it’s been flat out. We’re still trying to buy a house. We’ve not had a holiday but we’ll definitely have something at the end of the season.’
The club’s set-piece is firing. They have the most successful maul in the league, while they have also expanded their game to maximise the talents of wings Adam Radwan, Ollie Hassell-Collins and Gabriel Hamer-Webb. Centres Orlando Bailey and Will Wand have also formed an excellent midfield partnership to support Searle and Australia fly-half James O’Connor.
‘The game plan we have this season suits our players to a tee,’ says Liebenberg. ‘This is my seventh season here and it’s the first year I’ve been part of a Leicester Tigers side that has scored absolute worldies. Normally it’s scrums, mauls, penalties, kick for three.
‘From the start, Geoff said that Leicester have always had a good set-piece. Scrum, maul and lineout. Even if you’re not at your best, you can win games with your set-piece.
Gabriel Hamer-Webb is one of the flying Leicester wingers benefitting from their more open style under Parling – the Welshman scored five tries against Newcastle last month
Some things haven’t changed – the Leicester maul is the best in the league this season
But they can also cut teams apart out wide, thanks to the pace of backs such as Adam Radwan
‘The non-23 (those not picked in the matchday squad) come up with a few lineouts in training each week that replicate the opposition, the way they defend and the options they run in the lineout. This weekend we play Sale, so the non-23 have all of Sale’s plays and lineout so we’ve seen it all by the time we face it on Sunday.
‘We’ve got a good blend. You can see it’s freed up. Billy is an attacking fly-half who can spread the ball. We don’t play loosely with the ball. Our set-piece is still good. We’ve just added to our weapons.’
Parling’s methods are working nicely and he is on course to be named the league’s coach of the season. The wind is firmly in Leicester’s sails as the season heads towards its climax and a title bid can’t be ruled out just yet.
That fact shows just how far Leicester have come under Parling’s guidance.
