'The fundamentals don’t change': How Michael Cheika is adapting Union tactics to League - and winning

LEEDS – This is probably the biggest week of Michael Cheika’s career. A proud Lebanese-Australian, he is set to coach the nation of his heritage against the nation of his birth – and in the birthplace of rugby league, Huddersfield, just steps away from where the game was founded in 1895.

Then, he’ll hot foot it down to London, where he’ll coach the Argentina Pumas against England at the home of rugby union, Twickenham. Naturally, he’s been very busy this week.

Cheika has made waves at this Rugby League World Cup by introducing a playing style that is quite unlike any of the other 16 competing teams – understandably, given his extensive background in the other code.

But, according to the coach, there is only so much that one can feed into the other, and the codes have more in common than is often thought.

“I don’t want to make up something that isn’t there,” he said. “It’s a melange of things you understand from preparing for the game at Test level in another code. There might be some subtleties around small plays that might come into it but the fundamentals of the game are what is key, and what will get us in the game on Friday night.

“The fundamentals don’t change and the intensity and the mindset between union and league don’t change. You have to go out there with a certain mindset at this level, and that’s very important.

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“There’s a few different things, though they’re not necessarily from union but from the experiences that we have had. I throw things out there and then let the more experienced league boys smash it around a bit and see where it ends up.

“There’s nothing that we’d say ‘this is a thing we do in rugby’. Obviously there’s a few things, like the kickoffs, which are different but at the end of the day the fundamentals of the game are what counts. The rest are just bells and whistles.”

Great tactical setups rely on great communicators, and Cheika has three of the best alongside him in Sydney Roosters assistant Matt King, Lebanon legend Robbie Farah and former North Sydney Bears, London Broncos and ACT Brumbies player Tony Rea.

He’s also got Mitchell Moses and Adam Doueihi in the halves, whom he knows can make the right call at the right time on the field.

“Robbie has been very good with that, doing creative stuff. He’s coming along as a coach now and he’s able to take ideas, put his own in and mix them all around.

“You just give them a framework to work within and ask them to make the smart decisions and the reads in the game that they need. There’s no point playing overstructured in any footy. The quality players are quality players for a reason. You give them a framework and then trust them to make the decisions they need to make on field.

“Don’t ever confuse decision-making with execution, because it could be a great decision that doesn’t pay off but you want that person to do it again the next time. That’s what we’ve tried to do here from day one.”

(Photo by Charlotte Tattersall/Getty Images for RLWC)

One thing the codes will have in common for Cheika, at least this weekend, is that both of the teams he will coach are massive underdogs.

His messaging is tailored to the specific team and their journey, but he accepts that both Lebanon and Argentina will go in as outsiders.

“That’s the nature of the contest that we’re in,” he said. Often when you’re playing games away from home or you’re ranked a little lower, you’re the underdog.

“I wouldn’t be preparing the two mentally in the same way. We’ve got different road maps to get here and different road maps of where we’re going afterwards.

“It’s more about the idea of getting the best out of people and getting guys aligned for one specific strategy, one game plan and one focus. That’s the key thing and it crossed across both codes for sure.”