Brendan Gallagher: The quiet-man keeping that Tigers’ roar loud and clear

A small, bald-headed gent has been taking centre stage at Leicester on match days this autumn but the volume and quantity of ‘chat’ has diminished massively after Richard Cockerill’s temporary banishment from the fray.  Instead the TV cameras have been picking out the seemingly calm and unflappable Paul Burke, Cockerill’s backs coach and de facto number two since the departure of Matt O’Connor to Leinster this summer.
Outwardly two more diametrically opposed characters it would be hard to imagine. You will never have to build a protective soundproof booth – to protect the crowd that is – for the quietly-spoken Burke who has never knowingly sparked a controversy or caused family and friends to briefly tap their feet and look the other way. After a hugely varied career, however, the former Ireland fly-half feels like Welford Road is his spiritual home and Cockerill is his mentor. Cut him in two now and it will read Tigers all the way through.
Stepping into the breech on match days has been fun – not that he had any option really – and Burke has gained a valuable insight as to the pressures of being the gaffer. But he will be glad to hand the reins back to Cockerill, who this week agreed a five-year contract with Tigers, after Friday’s Heineken Cup game against Treviso.
“There have been a lot more media commitments and I am talking directly with players much more before and immediately after a game but that’s fine,” says Burke, “In fairness the lads are only hearing a voice they hear all week. I lead quite a few of the sessions and meetings at training so it just feels like a continuation really. I certainly haven’t been stressed by it all.
“Obviously Cockers is a massive character in the dressing room on match day and is missed, but all the senior guys have so much experience and have just stepped up. I just try and say the right things and hand over to them. People say I’m cool calm and collected during the game but the term I would use is controlled. I have to work at it, believe me. I am passionate about rugby and get very involved and inside I will be hurting and feel frustrated if things go wrong.
“Myself and Cockers are very different in some ways, we show our emotions differently but we are both very driven. Hopefully we will make a good combination when we finally get to sit next to each other for a game. The last few years, with Matt O’Connor as Cocker’s deputy, I have been on the headset scurrying around somewhere. It’s probably good to aim for a balance. Somebody to drive it, somebody to think it. You cover all the bases that way. For me its important you don’t get blinded by emotion, that you sit down and visualise what should happen and make calculated decisions rather than decisions determined by frustration and anger.”

Ever since he was lured to Leicester in 2006 by the canny Pat Howard the rugby gods, possibly feeling a tad guilty, have finally decided to look kindly on Burke. This is the man after all who famously got dropped by Ireland in 1997 after breaking  the then world goal-kicking record of eight penalties in a match against Italy. Burke was perfect off the tee in garnering 26 points that frosty January night at Lansdowne Road – he stroked over a conversion as well – but unfortunately probably the strongest Italy side in history amassed 37 at the other end.
“That was pretty bizarre,” admits Burke who won 13 Ireland caps in total. “One minute I was being praised and interviewed and my name was going down in the Guinness Book of Records despite the loss and the next moment I was just dropped from the team. Gone. In those days if you lost a match you were expected to win easily – which was a massive insult to a very classy Italy team with Diego Dominguez pulling the strings – the half-backs automatically got dropped.
“After that, what with David Humphreys and a young Ronan O’Gara around soon after, opportunities at Test level were limited to say the least. Not only were they great players they never seemed to get injured either. It was a shame because I played my best rugby for three or four years around that time but that’s sport. You need a bit of luck.”
Indeed. This is also the man remember who woke up on the first morning of his honeymoon at a remote beach resort in the US Virgin Islands to be presented with a telegram informing him that his club Bristol had just gone bankrupt and that reassuring three-year contract he had signed the previous week was worthless. One day married he was out of a job.
“That was pretty traumatic actually,” recalls Burke with a grimace. “British mobile phones didn’t work over there in those days and you needed to be a millionaire to use the landline, so for the two weeks of our honeymoon I was thinking I should be hitting the phone and trying to get a contract elsewhere to support my wife.
“When we arrived back at Heathrow my Dad Finbar, who has been a massive support in my career, picked us up shook his head and said ‘son its about time you got a proper job’. Professional rugby was still in its infancy then, nobody was really sure if it was going to work long term. Thankfully soon after Cardiff came in with an offer and I was able to continue my rugby career.”
In a nomadic rugby career Burke, having started with London Irish U8s, played for every England age group side up to England U21 before switching to the land of his Galwegian parents. A graduate of Loughborough Univeristy, he played senior rugby for two years at London Irish before moving to Ireland to take up a teaching appointment. While there he played for Cork Con and Munster and then in the professional era he enjoyed spells at Bristol, Cardiff and four successful seasons with Harlequins before finally moving to Leicester. Have boots will travel.

As if that wasn’t enough the pub his dad runs – the Windmill on Hampton Hill – is one of south west London’s premier rugby watering holes with endless rugby chat on tap. In short, Burke has been around the rugby block but has no hesiation in declaring Leicester best in class.
“It’s a fanstastic rugby environment at Leicester and the moment I arrived I wished deep down I had been able to make the move ten years earlier rather than at the end of my career. It’s all there at Tigers if you want it badly enough. The sheer quality in the squad, the facilities on and off the field. All the bits and pieces and add-ons that clubs hadn’t really got their heads around, Leicester already had in place seven years ago. Ahead of the game.
“There was and is so much rugby nous, from coaches and players, World Cup winners and Test players from around the world. It all goes into the melting pot and, yes its true, the training sessions were every bit as intense as most games. The pressure to perform at training was/is immense. I arrived as an experienced former international and still I would be really nervous and on edge for most of the Leicester training sessions.
“Making mistakes at training is not looked at too kindly at Leicester, they are not laughed off with a shrug and a promise to try harder next time. As a coach though that is brilliant. If you establish those standards on the training field, they automatically translate into a match and good things can be achieved.
“I may have arrived too late at Leicester as player – and two broken hands wasn’t a good way to finish my final season – but it has been a case of right time right place in terms of coaching. I’m bascially a Loughborugh PE teacher at heart so coaching has always been high on my agenda and it was Heyneke Meyer who gave me chance when Matt O’Connor got delayed at the start of one season with visa problems.
“Heyneke promoted me from the Academy where I had been assistant coach. I gave it my all and when Matt got back Heyneke said he wanted me to stay with the first team. It was a huge break and I’m very grateful. Immediately I was working on a daily basis with some of the best in the business.
“I’m not sure there are any secrets as such at Leicester but as well as the intensity we are honest and self critical enough to strip things right down to basics and spend hours practising the absolute core skills of catching and making a pass. We all take it for granted, because we are professionals, that everybody can catch and pass a ball but some players need to do more work than others. As a team you can acheive absolutely nothing in rugby unless you can pass and catch to high level.
“Appreciation of space between you and the defender, footwork, correct tansferring of weight, catching and passsing in one fluid movement – these are all skills that you can practise. Must practise. It sounds relatively easy but when you are runing at pace some players find it very difficult. Once everybody in the team has that skillset you can start growing and expanding the game you aim to play and Leicester.
“We have some exceptional passers of the ball at Leicester and we want to use their skillset so its up to the rest of players to get up to speed and if they don’t, they won’t get in the team. Quality players will always see that as a challenge, not something to fear.”