The three best coaches of 2014 Super Rugby

1.  Michael Cheika (Waratahs)

The coach of the NSW Waratahs was the only choice for the Coach of the Year.

Michael Cheika had been brought in for the 2013 season to replace Michael Foley who switched to the Western Force.

Given their roster of players the Waratahs had been under-performing as they had for most seasons since professional rugby started in 1996. The ex-Randwick player and coach seemed like a good choice because he succeeded with Leinster who had a similar history.

Leinster was chock-full of Ireland players such as Brian O’Driscoll, Shane Horgan and Gordon D’Arcy but they couldn’t get into the Heineken Cup final, let alone win it. At last they won a semi-final in 2009 under Cheika, and then beat the Leicester Tigers to win the cup and get the monkey off their back. Leinster was helped that day by a couple of Randwick Waratahs who Cheika had recruited: Rocky Elsom, who was the man-of-the-match of the final, and Chris Whitaker.

Cheika then went to Stade Français who had a stable of over-paid, under-performing galacticos, and got the sack for wanting to get rid of some of them.

Cheika came to the Waratahs after they were a rabble in 2012 and had won just four games. The roster of the main squad for 2013 was already struck when he arrived but he invited a young giant to join the ranks to get free training—Will Skelton. Although Cheika inherited a star recruit in Israel Folau, plus a new young gun, Michael Hooper, not too many were excited about what the new coach could do.

But Tahs’ fans were seldom ever excited. They were accustomed to a melancholy procession of one dreary game after the other—and of the Waratahs bringing visiting teams down to their level. There was no great joy in it even if they won.

Michael Cheika before the 2013 season – told his players to attack

But one thing the punters liked early in the 2013 season was the style of rugby that the Waratahs were playing under Cheika—this new coach was all right. In contrast to their old style of rugby, the Tahs led the the tournament counts for the number of run metres, linebreaks and offloads at the end of the pool stages. It was like the rugby world had turned upside down.

The Waratahs had too many stumbles last year to qualify for the finals and some of them were caused by poor handling when executing the new attacking way, and in exiting from their own half without kicking the ball.

Cheika was honest with the players and the public with their shortcomings and was like a breath of fresh air. They won eight games: double the 2012 tally, but there would have to be further improvement in 2014.

Would he moderate the Waratah’s attacking style in his second season?

Cheika said it best when the 2014 season was well underway:

We’ll never change—regardless if we make the finals or not, this is the way we play the game. We’ve just got to do it.

If the trend is against attacking rugby, we’ve made a conscious decision […] to play against the trend and just try and get so good at it so that we can be competitive against the penalties and the kicking style of game that tries to trap you.

Three signings of new players for this year were masterstrokes by Cheika—Kurtley Beale, Nick Phipps and Jacques Potgieter each had an effect on the season. Beale was regularly a game-changing circuit-breaker at inside centre. Phipps ran himself to the ground in matches and made significant tackles at key moments. Potgieter was like a raging bull.

But the 2014 season was not all roses. In the first half of the tournament the physicality was patchy as was seen in Canberra in Round 4 and Durban in Round 7.  Some of the handling became scrappy too: even as late as Round 11 against the Blues. Was this 2013 repeated?

But there was one watershed point in the season where you could see the spirit and the quality come through. It was in Round 12 against the Hurricanes at the beginning of May.

The Tahs had taken an early lead but the Canes took advantage of their mistakes and got ahead 24-7 after 27 minutes. It looked like the bumbling Waratahs of former years but the Waratahs leveled the score by half time in a thrilling comeback.

They won that game and the next eight also to win the title.

In the process Cheika re-engaged the Waratahs with their fans who didn’t mind his wearing his heart on his sleeve and slamming the odd door.  They liked to see a bit of passion for a change.

Cheika would be the first to give credit to his assistant coaches: the effect of attack-coach Darryl Gibson in the backs was obvious even last year, but another recruit, Nathan Grey, was directly responsible for much of the pugnacity that the Waratahs showed in 2014.

As Cheika said:

We specifically sought someone to come and dedicate himself to that defence and contact area. It’s something we knew we needed to improve if we wanted to be real competitors.

At every training session I attended this season all the players practised ruck drills in opposing pods and belted the crap out of each other (albeit wearing body suits) mostly under the direction of Grey. As the season progressed you could see the build-up in physicality and it reached its peak in the money games. Should Cheika leave the Waratahs they won’t have to look far for a replacement.

One factor in the success of the Waratahs this year was their high level of fitness—Cheika had them flogged by the trainers and you could see the positive results at the back end of games. He also made canny selections and rotated his second-rowers well. He second-guessed the pundits from the beginning of the season to the end and most often proved them wrong.

Cheika had good luck with injuries this year but when skipper Dave Dennis damaged himself when the Tahs thrashed the Brumbies in the return match in Round 17, Stephen Hoiles took his place and had an influence at the end of the season.

Not many saw the value of having 32-year-old Hoiles tagging along as an unpaid invited player last November at Waratahs training, but Michael Cheika did.