As top-flight English clubs go, none are as English as Leicester, with their grizzled battalions of steadfast Midlands yeomanry – all those Johnsons and Garforths and William Henry Hares – and their deep-rooted suspicion of all things flamboyant. Sleeves rolled up, hands dirty, mud under the fingernails…that’s the Tigers in a nutshell.

It is therefore striking to discover that when Michael Cheika pitches up as their 12th full-fat head coach of the professional era (there have been two or three of the “caretaker” variety into the bargain), Australia will sneak ahead of England in the nation...