Having spent almost three years with Leinster thus far coach Michael Cheika believes it will be the next two, with Alan Gaffney on board, that will shape his legacy at the province.

The Australian signed a two-year contract extension with Leinster yesterday and welcomed his former mentor at Randwick into the fold as backs coach.

Gaffney's arrival is a high profile one, given previous contracts with Leinster, Munster, the Australian Rugby Union and Saracens, but Cheika remains head coach and feels the addition of the "best possible" candidate can only benefit the province.

"He would have learned a lot as head coach at Munster," said Cheika this afternoon, "then with Australia and now with Saracens.

"He has a huge amount of knowledge to bring not just to the backs, but the coaching that he will bring to the whole squad and also to help develop our own coaches here coming through the system. That's very important.

"Some people think that it might be a bit weird to have him come here while I'm still coaching. But the idea is to assemble the best possible coaches to be able to keep playing the way we want to play and to help us play better so that we're successful on the field.

"After my five year period, and his two years, we want to leave a real legacy here."

Cheika intimated today that there will be no extension in 2010 and hopes to have done his bit to bring Leinster forward by then.

"I'm very happy to stay on," he said. "I felt that if I can still add value to the team, and if I made a few more changes and kept it moving forward and developing, that five years over the whole thing wouldn't be too long.

"I still feel like I can contribute a lot and I think that there's an awful lot of work to improve on."

The coach is keen to point out, however, that this does not mean he has a team in transition.

"I'm a pretty straight-talker. I always want to win, whether it's the Magners League or the Heineken Cup. If we want to be really good coaches or managers, we've got to try to win every week and at the same time develop and change things within our own structure — things that people may not see all the time.

"I don't want to be someone who says 'Aw, we're building...' to make excuses for not winning the competition. But I'm not going to do that. I want to win the comp (competition) — the league and the cup. And that's the same every year."

Gaffney replaces David Knox at the end of the season.  The current backs coach is returning to Australia but his impact has been "really strong", according to Cheika, who believes clubs down under would be "crazy" no to take him on.

"I think that David's influence on the attacking style of the whole team, not just the backline, has been really strong," he said. "His commitment to that style, under pressure, even when things haven't been going our way, has been integral to giving the players the confidence to play that way all the time.

"He's going back to Australia and the way some of the Super 14 teams play down there, they'd be crazy if they don't get a hold of him because they need to improve their attacking play."