Kiwi Mark Bakewell was Bath's forwards coach from 2006 to 2009
New Leicester forwards coach Mark Bakewell says that the lure of coming to Welford Road was to be at the spiritual home of English pack play.
After a playing career that included time in Australian rugby league, the former New Zealand forward has worked with some of the world's top coaches.
He needed no reminder of Leicester's reputation when brought in last week by Tigers head coach Matt O'Connor.
"Leicester Tigers is English rugby, in regard to forward play," said Bakewell.
"In a forwards role, Leicester has one of the highest profiles in the world."
Leicester's pack was a prime factor behind their dominance in the English game in the Nineties and Noughties
In a coaching career that has so far lasted 23 years, Bakewell first came to England from French side Brive to take charge of Bath's forwards from 2006 to 2009.
"The battles we had of three years up at Welford Road and down at The Rec were phenomenal," he recalls.
"I always had the utmost respect for the Tigers, as a forward pack, a team and as a club. It typifies English rugby. How far is it from Rugby, the town where the game first started? Just 20 miles?
"As a forwards coach from anywhere in the world, it is hard not to know Leicester rugby and hard not to know the reputation of forward play here.
"When you compare Level One international coaching and Leicester Tigers, there is not much that difference."
Tigers' international pedigree
A record six Leicester players were named in the 1997 Lions squad to tour South Africa - four of them forwards.
Tigers and England skipper Martin Johnson was captain, as he was again in 2001, and he was joined by two of his England team-mates, prop Graham Rowntree and flanker Neil Back, and Ireland back-row forward Eric Miller.
In Eddie Jones' latest England squad, there is only one Tigers forward, 79-times capped Dan Cole.
Prior to England hooker Peter Wheeler being capped for the first time in 1975, Leicester had provided 50 international players in 70 years.
Since Wheeler won the first of his 41 caps, the club have had a further 90 players capped - 41 of them forwards.
Current England and former Australia coach Eddie Jones did not play international rugby himself, but he did made three appearances for Leicester as hooker during the 1991-92 season.
Leicester have had 12 regulars in the England pack over the last four decades: Peter Wheeler (41 caps), Dean Richards (48), Martin Johnson (84), Neil Back (66), Graham Rowntree (54), Darren Garforth (25), Richard Cockerill (27), Martin Corry (67), George Chuter (24), Dan Cole (79), Geoff Parling (54) and Tom Youngs (28).
The latest Tigers forward to be called up is prop Ellis Genge, who has now won five caps.
Bakewell's background
Bakewell joined Leicester after two years with Championship side Bristol, as the full-time successor to Richard Blaze, who resigned for personal reasons in September.
He has arrived at a time when the 10-times national league winners and twice European champions are struggling by comparison to their former glories.
Saturday's 33-18 win at home to Harlequins, in Bakewell's first game as part of the set-up, was only their second Premiership victory in seven matches, leaving Tigers still in with a chance of a top-four finish for the 14th season on the trot.
He will now have development coach Brett Deacon working with him as part of O'Connor's backroom staff as they bid to stem the tide of 27 tries conceded in the last eight league matches.
Mark Bakewell helped Bristol win promotion to the Premiership with Andy Robinson in 2016
As well as Bristol, Bath and Brive, Bakewell he has also worked for Melbourne Rebels and Eastern Suburbs in Australia, Japanese club Suntory Sungoliath and Tonga.
But his pack expertise goes right back to his playing days when he had two years sampling the 13-man code with Sydney side Balmain.
"Greg Smith was my mentor," he said. "He told me 'You're not tall enough to play lock, and a bit too slow to play back row, let's put you in at loosehead, which I did for four years.
"I went to Balmain, the most renowned club for forward play, on a two-year contract, but I got a bad pelvic injury from playing loosehead and went to the back row. It killed my chance of playing international rugby but I managed to play in a couple of Grand Finals, against Randwick.
"It was all a good lesson on the way players should train and behave. I spent a lot of time on Bondi Beach and you worry about how you look so I used to train a lot, twice a day, to keep myself in good shape. But it all passes very quickly, as my career did. And, if you get an opportunity you need to take it."
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