Paul Gustard and Stuart Lancaster have emerged as two leading candidates in the race to fill the vacant Leicester head coach role next season, Telegraph Sport can reveal.
Lancaster, who coached England at the 2015 World Cup before a feted stint as senior coach of Leinster, was sacked by Racing 92 with immediate effect last month after fewer than two seasons on the outskirts of Paris and with the French heavyweights in 13th place in the Top 14 table.
Gustard, meanwhile, is currently head coach at Racing 92’s local rivals, Stade Français, who currently sit bottom of the Top 14 table, having been promoted this season from the position of defence coach with the Parisians having conceded the fewest points in France’s top division during the last campaign. The 49-year-old spent five seasons at Leicester as a flanker, moving to London Irish and then Saracens before transitioning into coaching.
Telegraph Sport understands that it is now virtually a two-horse race between the pair, both of whom have international experience. Graham Rowntree, Leicester’s legendary prop and the former Munster head coach, is thought to have slipped down the pecking order in recent weeks. Another overseas candidate remains in the picture but both Gustard and Lancaster are ahead in the order of preference with the Tigers.
Michael Cheika, the current head coach who has been linked with the Wales and Australia vacancies, will leave Leicester at the end of the season after one campaign in charge, with his young family having returned to their native Australia. There is still the possibility that the 57-year-old remains as a consultant director of rugby with a head coach on-site in Leicester, although that would be dependent on several factors including Cheika not taking a job elsewhere. The Tigers are currently fourth in the Premiership table and travel to Glasgow in the last 16 of the Champions Cup next month.
The arrival of Lancaster, 55, at Mattioli Woods Welford Road would mark his first job in English rugby for almost 10 years, since he was sacked as the national team coach after the 2015 World Cup.
Gustard, who was defence coach at Saracens and who won a Six Nations Grand Slam as an assistant to Eddie Jones with England, has not coached in his native country since his 2021 dismissal as head coach of Harlequins. The former flanker was, however, on Steve Borthwick’s final two-man shortlist to replace Felix Jones as England defence coach, with Joe El-Abd eventually preferred. Between Harlequins and Stade Français, Gustard was defence coach of Benetton in Italy.
The Tigers, who are currently recruiting their eighth head coach in as many seasons, had been planning for Cheika’s potential departure long before the Australian’s confirmation last month, although given Lancaster’s employment with Racing 92, he was not part of that initial planning. Part of the attraction with Lancaster is that he is available immediately, meaning that he could participate in a potential handover with Cheika for the rest of the season. Gustard remains under contract in Paris.
The likelihood of Richard Wigglesworth, England’s senior assistant coach and a former Premiership winner with Leicester, returning to the Tigers is understood to have diminished but it should not be ruled out entirely given that he is held in extremely high regard in the corridors of power at Welford Road. Franco Smith and Felix Jones were both on Leicester’s initial shortlist but their candidacies did not progress, while Steve Diamond, Newcastle’s consultant director of rugby, discussed the position with the Tigers but that dialogue never progressed to a formal stage.
Leicester declined to comment when approached by Telegraph Sport.
