{"id":5441,"date":"2026-01-08T23:28:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T23:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5441"},"modified":"2026-01-08T23:28:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T23:28:02","slug":"geoff-parling-leicester-head-coach-determined-to-drive-tigers-excellence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5441","title":{"rendered":"Geoff Parling: Leicester head coach determined to drive Tigers excellence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leicester have not challenged for the continent&#8217;s biggest prize since 2009, making just one European Champions Cup semi-final since then, while they lost the second-tier Challenge Cup decider to Montpellier in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Michael Cheika guided Leicester to last season&#8217;s Premiership Grand Final at Twickenham, where they narrowly lost to Bath, but the revolving door of head coaches saw the former Australia and Argentina boss step aside for rookie Parling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Halfway through the Prem season, ex-Australia assistant coach Parling has Tigers fifth in the table, although he is yet to oversee a win in European competition so far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was at the end of a wide-ranging live interview on BBC Radio Leicester on Wednesday night, in the lead-up to Saturday&#8217;s game against French side Bayonne,  that Parling was asked if he feels Tigers are capable of recapturing the aura of supremacy they once boasted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Put simply, to &#8216;make Leicester great again&#8217;?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Of course I do,&#8221; Parling replied. &#8220;I&#8217;m very confident we have a team good enough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If we apply ourselves consistently, we will be or could be that team that will consistently be challenging and playing in big knockout games and finals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We have a great squad &#8211; we will look to add to that as well &#8211; but our challenge, our common goal is to be consistently challenging for silverware, at the top of wherever we want to be with a homegrown academy, people coming through, have people look at us, enjoy the way we are playing, see a team that is organised, fights for each other.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But it&#8217;s a challenge isn&#8217;t it? And one we want to be part of.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leicester have not challenged for the continent&#8217;s biggest prize since 2009, making just one European Champions Cup semi-final since then, while they lost the second-tier Challenge Cup decider to Montpellier in 2021. Michael Cheika guided Leicester to last season&#8217;s Premiership Grand Final at Twickenham, where they narrowly lost to Bath, but the revolving door of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}