'Make Tigers great again' - Parling's driving goal

"Make Leicester Great Again."

It sounds like a campaign slogan you might get printed on a cap... well, with the place name different, of course.

But in reality it is the ambition of Leicester Tigers coach Geoff Parling - just simplified and condensed into four words.

The 42-year-old head coach is a Tiger of an almost bygone era, having won two of his three Premiership titles with the club when the East Midlands side was known for stockpiling silverware.

In the 25 years between 1988 and 2013, Tigers won 10 league titles and finished runners-up seven times. They also claimed back-to-back European Cups in 2001 and 2002.

Tigers have since added to that collection of domestic successes, but the 2022 Premiership triumph under Steve Borthwick remains the only major honour, not including the second-tier Prem Cup, won by the club in 12 seasons.

Leicester have not challenged for the continent's biggest prize since 2009, making just one European Champions Cup semi-final since then, while they lost the second-tier Challenge Cup decider to Montpellier in 2021.

Michael Cheika guided Leicester to last season's Premiership Grand Final at Twickenham, where they narrowly lost to Bath, but the revolving door of head coaches saw the former Australia and Argentina boss step aside for rookie Parling.

Halfway through the Prem season, ex-Australia assistant coach Parling has Tigers fifth in the table, although he is yet to oversee a win in European competition so far.

It was at the end of a wide-ranging live interview on BBC Radio Leicester on Wednesday night, in the lead-up to Saturday's game against French side Bayonne, that Parling was asked if he feels Tigers are capable of recapturing the aura of supremacy they once boasted.

Put simply, to 'make Leicester great again'?

"Of course I do," Parling replied. "I'm very confident we have a team good enough.

"If we apply ourselves consistently, we will be or could be that team that will consistently be challenging and playing in big knockout games and finals.

"We have a great squad - we will look to add to that as well - but our challenge, our common goal is to be consistently challenging for silverware, at the top of wherever we want to be with a homegrown academy, people coming through, have people look at us, enjoy the way we are playing, see a team that is organised, fights for each other.

"But it's a challenge isn't it? And one we want to be part of."

Parling has spoken at length in the past about the task he has taken on at Tigers, being the ninth head coach to lead the side in nine years.

His arrival also coincided with a significant transformation of the squad, with multiple title-winning duo Ben Youngs and Dan Cole - England's two most capped male players of all time - retiring at the same time that ex-captain Julian Montoya and two-time World Cup winning South African fly-half Handre Pollard also left.

Crucially, the homegrown talent Parling wants to build around has remained.

British & Irish Lions back-rower Ollie Chessum and his England team-mates Freddie Steward, Jack van Poortvliet and Joe Heyes are among them. George Martin is another, though he will leave for Saracens at the end of the season.

Parling said he was repeatedly reminded of what talent and level of experience was leaving before he took charge, but the former England international and Lion said he moved back to Mattioli Woods Welford Road with "an open mind".

"I've been really pleasantly surprised by the level of leadership prospect I've seen through the group, and level of hunger I've seen - the work-rate players display and their natural want to work hard for each other, which is brilliant," he said.

"I think the next group were ready to step up."

The same could be said of Parling himself, as he boldly switched from being an assistant coach with Australia to take on one of the biggest jobs in club rugby in Europe.

In a podcast where he laughed about looking like former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, and wishing he "had the charisma" of the German, Parling spoke earnestly about his role at Tigers.

He is a boss who freely admits he "doesn't have a coaching plan" beyond wanting to get the best out of his players this season and for "a number of years to come".

"I want to drive it forward so that we are consistently an excellent team and consistently an excellent club that does things the right way," he said.

"One that builds from within, in terms of its academy and pushes its academy products through, and develops players that have a sense of toughness.

"And when I say that, it's players who do their job when they are required to do their job in the hardest times. It's players who have a good level of game sense that can see the game and read it well, who are self-aware who can lead others."