Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill has branded former Tigers prop Martin Castrogiovanni’s post-match rant, in which he repeatedly called Cockerill a “c***”, as sad, and believes that the Tigers legend has sullied his reputation in the East Midlands.
Cockerill, who himself is hardly whiter than white, refused to excuse Castro’s rant on the grounds that it wasn’t made in the heat of the moment on the pitch, but rather after the game when the players had had a chance to cool off.
“There was nothing heat-of-the-moment about it, not at all,” Cockerill told The Telegraph. “For him to go and abuse our club in the way he did is pretty sad. He walked 50 yards down to the press room to summon the English media and knew exactly what he was doing.”
In the aftermath of Toulon’s European Rugby Champions Cup loss to his former employers, Castro took aim at Cockerill for the manner in which he was released from the club, claiming that he had to pay a £100,000 fee himself and calling the way the East Midlands club go about their business “amateur”.
“He can call me what he likes but not the club who dealt with the whole contract matter in a very professional manner,” responded Cockerill. “Castro was not starting here because Dan Cole was playing better than he was. Simple as that.
“I’m not here to be popular. I have to make tough decisions on behalf of the club. And it’s not right that they should be on the end of such abuse. Castro has sullied his reputation with our supporters. I would prefer to remember him marauding round the field. We will see how the disciplinary process works out. I’ve been banned in my time so we will see what happens.”
Castrogiovanni has been banned by Toulon for three days, which will leave him available for the return fixture at the Stade Felix Mayol this weekend, although he will not have trained at all this week.
Meanwhile, Cockerill has rubbished reports that star fly-half Owen Williams will be moving back to the Scarlets when his contract at the Tigers ends at the end of this season. The Leicester boss insists that contract renegotiations are at an advanced stage, and that Williams wants to stay.
“I am very confident we will be able to do a deal to keep Owen here,” he told BBC 5Live. “When he came, I promised if he was better than the other guys he would play. I picked him in front of Toby Flood, I picked him in front of Freddie Burns because he has played better.
“And, as far as I am aware, he is more than happy to stay at this club.”
Cockerill rebuffed suggestions that Williams might have a better chance of getting into the Wales team if he returned to the country, insisting instead that he would be better off remaining at the Tigers where he has the chance to play in front of 24,000 fans every week and win games like the heavyweight encounter against Toulon at the weekend.
“The reality is if you are the best player you are going to play for your country. Geordan Murphy never played a minute in Ireland, he got 72 Test matches. I want Owen to play for Wales. He can play for Wales playing for this club.
“He wants to play for this club, so all things are looking very positive and I hope that stays the case. We are very, very far down the road in actually getting to a point where he is ready to do a deal with us.”
Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
But the key thing Cockers is that he can’t simply play for Wales if he stays at Tigers. He will be at a disadvantage compared to Welsh players in every other country because they will either give complete access or negotiate. The English stance is ZERO negotiation (unless you’re an American) so he will get less training time and less game time than others he is competing with. Right now he’s not proven to be good enough for that not to be a limiting factor. If he is on the same level or similar as Anscombe/Patchell/Priestland then he won’t get a look in. So by staying in England he will need to be much, much better than them to get into the squad.
George North.
He proves my point. Had to have a special clause in his contract that cost Saints 80 grand in fines. Everyone else has now been warned that they will not tolerate any similar contracts.
@Brighty – how did you even think that had anything to do with Welsh contracts? Boring welsh record…….
I read more than just the title Baz so I could see that about half of it is about Owen Williams and whether he will sign for Tigers or a Welsh dual contract.
I actually agree with Brighty! Personally I think that if the AP wants to see more Welsh stars playing in the league, it needs to have a slightly more flexible attitude to their contracts and release clauses.
Agree with Brighty here. I think he would be a great addition to the Welsh squad, but he needs to be playing in Wales to cement his place. So many players in the Welsh squad are now coming back to Wales to play. I think if he was playing in Wales he would be in the squad. I would definitely have him in ahead of Priestland.