Richard Cockerill brings no velvet, just venom. Georgia’s passionate coach vows to meet the Boks head-on, forging pride through pain. No apologies, no shortcuts, just one bruising promise: leave Saturday with respect, and nothing left unspent.
Richard Cockerill isn’t built for sentimental rugby.
There’s no velvet in his glare, no softness to his handshake. A famously abrasive hooker for England – “spiky, aggressive, you don’t survive if you’re not” – Cockerill now stalks the touchlines for Georgia, hammering ambition into a team born for the trenches.
If the rugby world expects Georgia to bow to the Springboks on Saturday, Cockerill’s gaze suggests otherwise.
He grins when asked if being uncompromising is fair. “Whatever happens, we want the Springboks to respect us for our physicality and mentality. They may win, that’s alright, but we want to come away with pride in how we played and how we held ourselves.”
With Cockerill, respect is never a handout. It’s earned in bruises and battles.
If there’s a beating heart to Georgian rugby, it’s the scrum, something that speaks to Cockerill’s rugby soul.
“The game here has traditionally been built on the scrum. Georgians love that contest; it’s about physicality and mentality. They come from the mountains, from farming backgrounds, strong men who love to fight. Their DNA just lends itself to the kind of game I’ve always valued. Frankly, it’s not dissimilar to the classic South African forwards. It’s a collision sport, not ballet.”
“There’s going to be a huge contest at the set piece,” he continues. “Look, you don’t get picked for the Springboks if you can’t scrum, whoever you are. The contest is coming, and the only way for us to combat that is to make it head on and meet the challenge.”
He doesn’t hide from his own image. “Do I see Georgia being cast in my mould? I think they bring that naturally, to be honest. Many of our players are cut from the cloth of French rugby – Top 14, Pro D2 – leagues where it’s aggressive and relentless. You simply have to be Test-level tough.”
But Cockerill is no hired mercenary parachuted in to shout the odds. What surprised him most about Georgia was not bravado, but brotherhood.
“Culturally, it’s very different here. Eastern European culture isn’t Western Europe. The boys love each other here. It’s a small country, with a hard history, having been invaded by the Soviet Union, and that bonds people. They don’t care how good a coach I am, they want to know that I’m a good man first. In England or France, people might respect you for what you’ve done in rugby. Here, they respect you for how you treat people. That was a culture shock, but the right kind.”
He’s no stranger to team building, either.
“My go-to isn’t refining superstars. It’s about making the sum of the parts stronger than the individuals. Leicester when I got there was a ready-made team. I took Toulon to a French final with a crew of big names, sure, but my passion is building – spirit, ethic, hard graft. That’s what we’re doing here, forging something stronger than the individuals, and Georgia is certainly that.”
Yet, for all the craft, Georgia remains in rugby’s purgatory, too strong for Europe’s second tier, denied a chance against the best.
“We just want opportunity. Sport is about meritocracy and opportunity. World Rugby talks about growing the game; well, where do Georgia go to get better? It would make sense for the bottom Six Nations team to play a playoff with the winner from Rugby Europe – us, Spain, whoever. If we’re not good enough, send us back and we improve.
“But ring-fencing out of financial fear or politics isn’t good enough. At the moment we’re stuck: too strong for our competition, probably not good enough for the next, but like Italy years ago, we need the chance to grow.”
He barks a laugh.
“After Saturday, we don’t play a Tier One nation until 2027. Ridiculous. You only improve by playing better teams, and we’re hungry for it.”
What’s the missing piece for Georgia’s final step up?
“We’re a young rugby nation. We need exposure to top level matches. We need to be fitter, better tactically, more aware. A lot of our guys play in the Black Lions or in Pro D2. Those are great competitions, but it’s not Test rugby. We need games like Saturday, where you are pushed to the extremes. That’s how you get better – physically, tactically, mentally.”
It’s a recipe Cockerill knows intimately from his own playing career, and from the bruises traded with the Springboks. He recalls facing South Africa three times, with James Dalton a vicious rival: “Those games were always about gritting your teeth, rolling up your sleeves. You knew the Boks were coming, and you had to meet them square on. Even in defeat, those are the matches you treasure: effort, fight, brawl, aggression. If we don’t front up emotionally and physically this weekend, we’ll be found out. That’s just the truth.”
He expects nothing less than an onslaught on Saturday. The Boks, he knows, will come with power and pace. But Cockerill wants his men to emerge from the tunnel as equals in desire, if not yet legacy.
“What I want from my players isn’t just a result – it’s for us to play our game, to go toe to toe with the best, to leave knowing we brought everything we had.”
Richard Cockerill won’t beg for headlines, nor for patronising applause. He’s in the business of respect, battled for, bloodied for, never bought.
On Saturday, he’ll send Georgia into rugby’s hardest war with a promise: “We’ll meet the Boks front-on. They’ll know they’ve been in a contest. And if we must lose, we’ll do so without regret.”
It isn’t rhetoric. It’s a promise. In every scrum, every leer, every refusal to back down, Georgia will carry a little of their English coach’s fire, and a great deal of their own.
For Cockerill, that’s more than enough.
