Pool Four/John O'Sullivangoes on a Tiger hunt in Leicester to discover the unique appeal of one of England's most famous rugby clubs
It's a little before 8pm on Monday when a party of young ladies sashays into Shimla Pinks, an Indian restaurant on the London road in Leicester that espouses the modern, minimalist, slightly preppie decor: gleaming cutlery, snow-white linen, mirror-like surfaces.
A maelstrom of high-pitched animation descends in tone to nudges and whispered asides. On a lower deck in the establishment is a table of eight, seven of whom play rugby for the Leicester Tigers. It's hardly box office celebrity in a city of 280,000 inhabitants but the incident does offer an insight into the umbilical cord than binds Leicester and its sporting culture.
The Argentine-born Italian international Martin Castrogiovanni, the Irish quintet of Leo Cullen, Geordan Murphy, Shane Jennings, Gavin Hickie and Frank Murphy and a promising 23-year-old flanker, the Leicestershire-born Luke Abraham, note the female approbation with raised eyebrows and smiles.
The recognition quotient is high for the players but not considered invasive, their interaction with supporters relaxed and accepted. Abraham explains: "The support is not just drawn from the city but the surrounding towns and villages and people come from Birmingham and Coventry to support the team as season-ticket holders. The players live locally in those towns and villages, particularly the guys who are married, so there is a ready identity."
Jennings, who returns to Leinster at the end of the season, recounts the tale of a local butcher in Leicester frequented by both himself and Cullen.
"The guy asked us if we could get him tickets for the home game against Cardiff in the Heineken Cup. We did and he got a little carried away on the day as we also managed to get him into a reception afterwards. He was very much the worse for wear.
"The following day he saw me come into the shop and tried to hide. Normally he'd be very keen to discuss the matches. He eventually shuffled over a little sheepishly and apologised, saying that he was home in bed by 8pm after his excesses. His actions reflect the friendly and supportive nature of the local people."
Geordan Murphy, who first arrived in Leicester as a teenager in 1997, points out that the attention is not intrusive and that it usually extends to a few words about games past and upcoming: "There is a big sporting culture in the city that extends from soccer through rugby, a very successful hockey team and basketball."
YOU DON'T COMEto Leicester for the sights.
There is also a close sense of community among the playing staff, those who are single tending to spend time together outside of training and matches.
The key to professional sport, the playing environment notwithstanding, is time management, trying to reduce the tedium, whether that constitutes going for a bite to eat in company, playing the X-box or, as the conversation this night suggests, following American football. The merits of the Patriots, Bears and Colts are teased out. Former England and Leicester totem Martin Johnson, a hardcore San Francisco 49ers fan, would approve.
The Irish coterie at Welford Road - which includes the absent Johnny Murphy Paul Burke and Ian Humphreys - while tight-knit is not a clique, as evident from the banter in the restaurant. Frank Murphy, who arrived from Munster last summer, is teased about his irate reaction to an attempt by his namesake Johnny to repair a puncture.
It seems there was a game of darts involving the Murphys, Geordan included, the man throwing the lowest score with a single dart designated to change the wheel. Johnny lost but returned to the apartment soon after with the ignition key bent at right angles having encountered a few difficulties in completing the task. They managed to bend it back into shape but Frank wasn't best pleased.
The banter then involves Castrogiovanni, or Castro as he is known to his team-mates, ribbed first about clumsiness that has led to several breakages in the apartment of his flatmate Abraham, then about the fact that an Italian film television crew is to follow him around for a couple of days this week and also appearing in an upcoming edition of Italian Maxim.
He's also learnt how to speak a few words of Irish but in the Munster match at Welford Road Irish number eight Denis Leamy found his accent difficult to decipher.
All - including Hickie, who has just returned from playing an A match, Cullen and Abraham - become the butt of tales. Even Geordan Murphy fails to escape, made to squirm when mention is made of a certain pose for team-mate Leon Lloyd's calendar. His defence - that the whole thing was "very tasteful" - is met with guffaws.
But while the easy repartee between players, the anecdotes of the club's standing in the community and the rapport with supporters offer an inkling of a harmonious atmosphere it in no way captures the primitive forces that underpin Leicester's success.
IT'S TUESDAY MORNINGat the training ground in Oadby and Richard Cockerill tidies up after a meeting of the forwards. Sky's prying cameras alight on a white board with various motivational phrases for today's Heineken Cup match against Munster in Thomond Park, but Leicester's assistant coach quickly covers them with a flip chart. "It's private, mate," he replies when asked if Sky may take a peak.
Coventry Rugby Club was Cockerill's first home but he soon moved to Leicester, spending 10 years as part of the celebrated A-B-C front row - Leicester used letters instead of numbers in those days - alongside club legends Graham Rowntree and Darren Garforth. He then moved to Montferrand, France, for a couple of seasons before returning to Welford Road three years ago.
An England international, Cockerill has never shied away from controversy either in his autobiography, In Your Face, in which he criticised England coach Clive Woodward (and effectively ended his international career) or in 1998 when eyeballing New Zealand hooker Norm Hewitt during the haka.
Cockerill's pugnacity on the pitch belies an articulate man with a sharp sense of humour to match his tongue. At one stage he was a popular landlord to a triumvirate of Irish rugby refugees in Leicester. He's assisted coach Pat Howard for the past two seasons at Welford Road, his remit coaching the Tigers pack.
He tried to encapsulate the essence of Leicester as a club: "We have a history of recruiting from within and that's a strength and a weakness for us. We have had the odd foreign coach and the odd foreign player come in and show us other things. It's just the way it's done here, rightly or wrongly. It's for other people to judge that."
The stories of Leicester training sessions are legion, regular bust-ups, as Shane Jennings explained: "The physical side of it might not always be as prevalent in other clubs but that's just been bred into the lads. I have come from a situation in Leinster where it was very competitive but at the other end of it, it never boils over as much as it does here.
"In Leinster you might have two punch-ups a year; here it could be up to four a week. It's not malicious or a hatred thing. It's just that everyone that plays for the club is ultra-competitive. They want a place on the team and they're not going to step back. That's something I will always remember, even after leaving Leicester. No matter who you are you still have to work as hard as anyone else to try and get that spot."
One of the most celebrated dust-ups involved Lewis Moody, Alex Tuilagi and Martin Johnson. Moody, holding a tackle pad, was shunted aside by Tuilagi not once but twice. On the second occasion he dropped the pad, chased after the Samoan - one of three brothers at the club - and felled him with a swinging arm.
Before Alex's gargantuan brother Henry arrived on the scene Johnson grabbed Moody by the collar and asked for an explanation, to which the latter took umbrage. Moody took a swing and missed but Johnson didn't, knocking the flanker out while maintaining a hold of his collar before gently putting him on the ground. Leicester justice, training-ground style.
Cockerill pointed out: "It's a pretty harsh environment but for anyone who has played at the top end of the sport, that environment is not unique. I'm sure Munster's is pretty harsh as well and the senior players set those standards.
"We have those players here and we have had them in the past, as do Munster.
"I'm sure that Paul O'Connell and players of his peer group set the standard at Munster and it shows why they are such a fantastic team. Consistently over the years we have been a pretty good team as well. I don't think that it is unique. Teams that have a lot of success tend to have that sort of background.
"We like to think that we're a proper rugby club. It's our ground. Even though it's a little old-fashioned, the supporters have free contact with the players. You have to walk through the crowds to get to the bar. When you win it's great and when you lose you get a bit of stick.
"That's part and parcel of it. At a lot of these modern grounds supporters never actually get to see the players; well it's a shame because it's the core of rugby. That's why we have an affinity with our supporters. They know the players and that's a positive.
"Our attitude from day one is that we all want to do our best for the club.
"We have lots of people who have World Cup medals and done lots of things in the game but their home is here and they want to play for us. We don't have big-timers here. We have had some very big names in this club and they all turn up, all do the training, the horrible stuff as well as the nice training.
"Nobody has an easy ride, nobody is allowed to sit out and just pick and choose what they do. If we have the most senior player doing the training sessions then there is no excuse for the youngest player."
OF TODAY'S GAMEhe admits: "It's very easy to get caught up in the hype, the Munster machine, the Thomond Park factor and that they never lose when they play in red in Limerick. Fair play to them. We haven't lost in the Guinness Premiership for three years at Welford Road. Munster have turned up the last two times and beaten us. Records are there; at some stage they will be broken. I have got the utmost respect for Munster."
Cockerill's transparent candour is the perfect foil for the more cerebral approach of the Australian Howard.
The ex-Wallaby test centre has proved himself as player and coach at the club and is looking for a fitting swansong before returning to a pharmacy business in Australia. Once an outsider trying to make an impact, he could not be held in higher esteem. He'll miss the club.
"When I came to the club as a player I was a test Wallaby but you have to come in and earn your stripes," he says.
"It's a great humbling experience. It's a working-class club with a brilliant work ethic. It probably reflects in our play a little bit. When you watch Munster, they're very good at this, as we are, they're very good at that as we are. In many respects there are a lot of similarities but there are subtle differences as well."
Howard smiles when today's venue is mentioned. "It's not long since I played so I appreciate that you go out into a big arena, you walk out, sample it, hear the boos, hear the hissing and hear the roar when Munster get a roll on. We've been there, we know that and we expect it. I'm sure there will be a sea of red.
"In the end if you're Harry Ellis, you're not playing against the whole of Munster, you're playing against Peter Stringer and that's your challenge. As long as you break it down to the individual task at hand: you do your job and everyone does their job, then it is a one-on-one contest across the board. You are not playing against 15,000 people because you'd never win.
"If we play well then at times we will silence the crowd. At other stages you're going to hear the roar and (you have) to pretend their cheering for you."
There are few better equipped to try. After all, the collective noun for tigers is "ambush" and there's nowhere else in Europe they'd rather spring the trap.
