Heaslip: Cheika will fuel Waratahs’ fire

BRITISH & IRISH LIONS TOUR:

The Ireland No. 8 knows only too well the motivational tools at their disposal in the shape of his former Leinster coach Michael Cheika, now the boss at the New South Wales Super Rugby franchise.

It was Cheika who gave Heaslip and fellow Lions Rob Kearney, Sean O’Brien, Jonny Sexton and the now injured Cian Healy their first starts at Leinster and if they learned anything from the man who delivered a first Heineken Cup success to the province in 2009, it is his ability to get the best of his players ahead of a big match.

“There’ll be a lot of F Yous (sic) and that kind of stuff,” Heaslip smiled as he visualised the Waratahs build-up to tomorrow’s game, “because he’s a fiery man.

“He’s a passionate man, really, really passionate about his rugby and wants people to go 100% flat out. He doesn’t like people holding back, he doesn’t like people hiding. He’s a big believer in hard work and effort and you can have all the skill in the world but if you’re not putting in the hard work and effort and intensity and showing the passion, that’s not Checks’s game.

“That’s how he played and I’m sure the boys around here will tell you how he played, he was a hard nut, some would say a madman at times. I’ve a lot of time for Checks, he’s a great coach and these guys are going to be well drilled. They’re going to be a hard team with Cheika calling the shots.”

Told of Cheika’s promise for Saturday’s game that “if it’s wearing red we’ll hit have a crack at it”, Heaslip smiled again and said: “That would be Checks and I wouldn’t put it past him if the pads they were hitting this week were red or if they put red jersies on the opposition. He’d have made sure every box was ticked.”

Heaslip described the 2009 Lions tour and the four-month spell at Leinster spent by All Blacks lock Brad Thorn’s as being the biggest influences on his career in terms of professionalism but he said Leinster’s ongoing success in Europe under Cheika’s successor Joe Schmidt was also a credit to his former boss.

“I don’t think Leinster would be in the place they are now without Cheika being there and I think he brought it as far as he could and then Joe came in and kicked it on a level, and hopefully Matt will come in and I have full faith in him kicking it on another level.

“Firstly for the club, he put in really, really good structures. The club had lost its way a little bit I think and it was a little bit shaky and we were training all over the place. It was all over the place and Checks came in and he put in a really good structure.

“I always refer to it as an organisation, kind of like the NFL organisations and he just put really, really good systems in place. He was the first one that hatched the whole plan of moving to the one facility in UCD.

“He didn’t get to see that but we’re there now and it’s up there with some of the best facilities around — although some of the schools around here that we train in rival it, it’s pretty humbling.

“As a player he was great (for us). He gave so many young guys a chance at a time when it was a little bit harder for younger guys to get a go, but he kept you under the pump. He demanded the best from players; sometimes the ways he went about that were good for some players and harder for others to take.

“He was a fiery character but I had a lot of time for Checks and he had a lot of time for me, and I was really blessed because he was a back-row player and I was just lucky because he could see the game the way I would see it and see the game quite similarly in that regard.

“I’ve been really lucky; most of my forwards’ coaches have all been back rows.”

Heaslip is hoping to catch up with his old boss as well as former Leinster and Ireland assistant Alan Gaffney — also on the Waratahs’ staff — during the Lions’ stay in Sydney.

“I have a lot of time for Riff (Gaffney), he’s good craic,” the Lions No.8 said. “He was one of the first people to text me when the announcement came out so I’d love to meet up with him for a beer. Riff is a special character. I thought he was hilarious. He would explain a drill to you and firstly you couldn’t understand him because he’d be shouting at you so much with his Aussie accent and then you’d get frustrated because you couldn’t understand him and you couldn’t do the drill, and then finally you’d get around to doing the drill.

“He would scream at you constantly but he was a big believer in being a real good pro, knowing your role and drilling it. He was a big believer in repetition, repetition, repetition: passing, tackling, whatever the drill was.

“He was great; he took a lot of time out, even if it was five minutes or 10 minutes every day before or after training, absolutely no problem. He was great to talk to about the game and he was a great coach to step away and have a chat about different things.”