Leicester Tigers to hire attack coach Peter Hewat after derby defeat

Leicester Tigers will appoint the highly rated Peter Hewat as their new attack coach, Telegraph Sport can reveal, as Dan McKellar’s first season in charge looks set to end in disappointment.

A 40-17 defeat to rivals Northampton Saints on Saturday leaves Leicester’s play-off hopes hanging by a thread. With three rounds of Premiership matches remaining, Leicester are third bottom and six points off the top four.

McKellar was appointed as head coach from the Brumbies in Australia to replace Steve Borthwick, who took charge of the England national team, and raided Mattioli Woods Welford Road for much of his back-room staff. Kevin Sinfield, Richard Wigglesworth and Tom Harrison joined Borthwick as assistant coaches while Aled Walters joined as head of strength and conditioning.

That is not the only disruption that Leicester have faced this season. With a large contingent of Tigers players involved at the World Cup, McKellar was unable to gather his whole squad for preseason while attack coach Alan Dickens was placed on leave in October. In his absence, club stalwart Matt Smith, who was already operating as skills coach and lead academy coach, took the reins.

However, Tigers’ attack has largely been toothless. Only winless Newcastle Falcons have beaten fewer defenders or made fewer metres than Leicester who average three tries per game. Although they boast the best defence in the league they have conceded 334 points. Sometimes it appears that they are stuck between the two stools of playing more expansively versus returning to the the more prescriptive gameplan that Borthwick deployed en route to winning the Premiership in 2022. Leicester also reached the play-offs the following season under interim head coach Wigglesworth.

Hence McKellar has acted to bring in 46-year-old Hewat from the Black Rams in Japan’s Rugby League One. The pair previously worked together at the Brumbies where Hewat established a reputation as one of the most progressive young Australian attacking coaches. The former London Irish full-back joined the Black Rams as attack coach in the 2020 before becoming their head coach the following year.

Borthwick’s methods also took time to bear fruit at Leicester when he first arrived, finishing sixth in his first season, and there is a recognition that McKellar also needs to be given some leeway, although that may not preclude further backroom changes in the off-season.

Leicester face the in-form Bristol Bears, Sale Sharks and Exeter Chiefs in their run-in and McKellar, who described the record-equalling derby defeat to Northampton as a “hard watch”, has told his squad not to focus on the table. “I’m not even really worried about play-offs, I’m just worried about performance,” McKellar said. “We are back home next week, have three games at least to go and we will focus on Bristol now.”