Heineken Cup / Ralph Ellis / 08 April 2009 / Leave a comment

With Leicester top of the Premiership and going into this weekend's Heineken Cup quarter-final on a high, Richard Cockerill has proved himself a worthy candidate for the head coach's job on a permanent basis. A win against Bath on Saturday would certainly do his prospects no harm, says Ralph Ellis.

For the Chinese, this is the year of the Ox. For sports fans it seems to be the year of the caretaker. Whether anybody has produced a symbol of a bloke in a flat cap with a broom, saying: "You can't play 'ere", I'm not sure, but they probably should.

It started with Guus Hiddink at Chelsea, went on with Paul Hart at Portsmouth, now there's Alan Shearer at Newcastle. And don't think it's only happening in football because in Rugby Union Leicester Tigers have gone down exactly the same road.

When Heyneke Meyer went back to South Africa in January it looked like a disaster for Tigers who had enjoyed a positive first half to the season. Forwards coach Richard Cockerill was put in charge and the first thing he did was admit he wasn't sure if he wanted the job. Meanwhile the club's head hunters set off around the globe to seek a new number one, just as they had done when Meyer was appointed, and before that to sign Marcelo Loffreda.

Three months later and Cockerill has grown into the job, and is now admitting he wants to keep it. "We've had discussions," he's admitted to Steve Bale in this morning's Daily Express. "They've been speaking to other people and rightly so. If they come back to me it's because they think I can do the job.

"I'd love to do it. We've had the luxury of seeing how it goes. If we had lost every league game I'd be happy to step down, but I think I'm capable of doing this."

Cockerill has indeed proved himself more than capable with Leicester now top of the Guinness Premiership and going in to this weekend's Heineken Cup quarter-final against Bath on a high. The club have switched the tie to the Walkers Stadium to accommodate the extra crowd. Leicester are [1.49] favourites to win the tie, and the [9.2] for them to go on and lift the trophy itself looks more than appealing.

Tigers have won nine of 12 matches since Cockerill took over, and despite having only a one point lead at the top of the table they are now [1.43] favourites to be regular season winners and [2.94] to win the Grand Final.

They've also been given a boost by losing man mountain prop Julian White for only a fortnight when the haymaker of a punch he threw at Andrew Sheridan during the weekend win over Sale could have received a far heavier punishment.

Just as in football, winning titles at this stage of the season depends on squads and Tigers have strong cover for White. As Cockerill says: "We have Martin Castrogiovanni who is a pretty good replacement and selection would have been pretty tight anyway."

Five things you might not know about Julian White

1. Born in Plymouth, he started playing rugby for Okehampton and appeared in the same senior side as his dad.

2. He went travelling to New Zealand where after joining Dannevirke he was elevated to Hawke's Bay and then became the first Englishman to play Super 12 rugby for the Canterbury Crusaders.

3. He spent a season at Bristol in 2002 when he was forced to honour his contract despite trying to engineer a move to Bath - and has admitted his lack of enthusiasm was one of the factors that helped Bristol get relegated.

4. Part of the 2003 World Cup winning squad, he chose not to play in 2007 to stay home with his family.

5. As well as playing rugby he runs a 250 acre sheep and cattle farm.