Waratahs Challenge for Cheika

Michael Cheika, who led Leinster to a Heineken Cup triumph in 2009, was charged with turning around the ailing Waratahs when he was named as the Super Rugby team's new coach on Tuesday.

The 45-year-old has been handed a three-year contract with the province, traditionally Australia's strongest and wealthiest, which last season crashed to a record eight successive losses and ended up 11th in the 15-team competition.

Waratahs players, however, formed the core of the Australia team that beat Six Nations champions Wales 3-0 in a test series earlier this year and it was that talent that drew Cheika home to Sydney.

"I liked the potential of creating something at the Waratahs for longer than the few years we've got now," he told a news conference at Sydney Football Stadium.

"Not all clubs have that potential. This is a team and an organisation with really great potential and I'd really like to tap into that."

Cheika replaces Michael Foley, who quit the job in July after just one season in charge to take up a three-year deal with the Western Force - a job Cheika turned down.

Chairman Roger Davis said the Waratahs had interviewed "more than a dozen" candidates for the job and had brought Cheika in as a "change agent" to transform the club and put it back at the top of Super Rugby.

"I don't know if I'm an agent but I definitely like the challenge of being able to change something for the better, not just changing things for the sake of it," Cheika said.

Waratahs coaches are expected not only to produce winning teams but also ones that win in style, a double demand that cost Reds coach Ewen McKenzie the job after taking the Waratahs to the Super Rugby final in 2008.

Cheika said he was comfortable with the challenge.

"That's pretty easy because I have the same expectations myself," he added.

"I don't feel that that's an extra pressure because that's what I want to do.

"I come from an attacking background, sometimes to my own detriment ... I don't think you can win big games without scoring tries."

A No 8 who represented New South Wales in his playing days, Cheika cut his coaching teeth with Sydney club Randwick before moving to Ireland with Leinster in 2005.

Cheika took the Irish province to the Heineken Cup semifinals in his first season before, with last year's Waratahs skipper Rocky Elsom on board, capturing Europe's top club prize three years later.

Two seasons at Stade Francais in France's Top 14 followed but he was unable to replicate the continental success he enjoyed at Leinster with the once formidable Paris club and departed in May.

Related articles

• Foley confirms Super exit from Waratahs
• Force to wait on Cheika coach offer
• Tahs enter race for SBW
• Foley confirms Super exit from Waratahs
• Coach Michael Foley quits Waratahs

Toulon in Final after Jonny Drops

Jonny Wilkinson slotted over a last minute drop goal to take Toulon into the Amlin Challenge Cup final after a thrilling all-French showdown.

The former England fly-half scored 27 points in total to add to Steffon Armitage's first-minute try, as Toulon beat Stade Francais 32-29.

Stade Francais led for most of the first half and edged ahead once more on the hour, and Wilkinson needed four attempts in the closing stages to kick the winning points.

Toulon took the lead through Armitage's superb score and they almost had another inside four minutes following more good work by the flanker, only for scrum-half Sebastien Tillous-Borde to drop the ball as he tried to offload from a tackle.

But poor tackling let Morgan Turinui through to set up full-back Hugo Bonneval for a converted score in the 12th minute which nudged Stade ahead.

Fly-half Jules Plisson kicked two penalties and a drop goal to extend the visitors' lead to 16-5 but Wilkinson was on target with penalties in the 32nd and 40th minutes, either side of Plisson's third, to leave the half-time score at 19-11 to Stade.

Wilkinson took his side into the lead with three penalties and a drop goal in the first 15 minutes of the second half but Turinui rounded off a wonderful passing move from the base of a scrum to restore the visitors' advantage, Plisson adding the extras to make it 26-23.

Two Wilkinson penalties countered by a Plisson drop goal left the scores level at 29-29 going into the final 10 minutes - but with Stade winger Julien Arias in the sin-bin for cynically preventing a try after Plisson's kick was charged down.

Wilkinson missed the resulting penalty and then a drop-goal attempt before remarkably putting a 30-metre effort wide from a central position - but he kicked the crucial drop goal from just over 40 metres a minute from time to ensure his side will face Biarritz or Brive in May 18's final.

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Savare Spares Stade Francais Relegation

Stade Francais will not be relegated from the Top 14, French rugby's financial watchdog ruled on Monday night.

The two-time Heineken Cup winners were facing demotion over mounting financial problems, but have been saved by Thomas Savare, the director general of technology company Oberthur.

The DNACG, which supervises administrative, legal and financial issues among France's rugby clubs, ruled at a meeting this evening Stade would retain their top-flight status.

Savare will become the club's new president, according to L'Equipe.

A statement on the Top 14 website read: 'The supreme council of the DNACG observed at the meeting on Monday, June 27, the terms of the reorganisation of Stade Francais Paris and the guarantees provided for the upcoming season through the contributions made by the new investors.

'In view of these, the supreme council believes there is no reason to prevent the club from participating in the Top 14, provided that that all legal procedures related to payments and commitments are achieved within a period of 48 hours.'

Savare, according to L'Equipe, will replace Max Guazzini, who will become honorary president.

'We struggled. This was born out of adversity but we are very happy,' Savare told reporters.

'We saved a great club. This is a private investment of passion because I am a supporter. We will continue the tradition. I told Max that I needed him to rebuild, to continue the work he has done.

'It was not possible for Stade Francais to disappear. This is a wonderful adventure.'

Stade Francais in Finance Trouble

Laporte and Guazzini during better times

Not good times these days at Stade Francais as their manager for Michael Cheika is set to appear before the independent disciplinary committee on 19 July in Dublin over misconduct complaints arising out of his behaviour during and after the Challenge Cup defeat Harlequins last month.

The French rugby club also faces bankruptcy if they are unable to find several million euros before they appear in front of the financial committee of the National Rugby League (LNR) next Monday.

Stade, who under the flamboyant former radio mogul Guazzini's presidency have emerged from third division anonymity to win five league titles and reach two European Cup finals, had thought their financial woes were over when a virtually unheard of Canadian Foundation FACEM said they would invest 12million euros in the club.

However, the deal brokered by former Stade and France coach Bernard Laporte fell apart and on Tuesday it was announced that both he and Guazzini were suing FACEM - who are based in a in Montreal.

Guazzini, who has also transformed the image of club rugby in France with glitzy  pre-match shows, admitted that regardless of what happens with the legal case their immediate problem was to avoid relegation because of their parlous financial position.

Stade have accumulated debts of 5million euros - mainly because of the failure of the advertising company Sportys - though Guazzini says ideally they need 6.6million euros to be solvent.

"If we don't find the money, then we are finished," said Guazzini.

"We will be relegated to Federale 1 (third division)," commented Guazzini, who added that in such a scenario the club would be obliged to file for bankruptcy.

Guazzini, a qualified lawyer who advised senior Socialist politicians and then made his fortune from NRJ radio station, earlier told radio station France Info it didn't matter who came forward with the money as their situation was so desperate.

"Everyone can come to Stade Français," said the 63-year-old.

"Either to make a donation or to take majority control of the club.

"The situation today, is that it is a battle to save a magnificent club, a world rugby mark, a very popular club.

"Me, I will leave, I will give way to someone who really wants the job.

"There are people in this country who love sport and rugby and who have enough money to save the club."

Guazzini said that there was some light at the end of the tunnel.

"There are negotiations going on, that is all I can say at this stage."

Laporte, who goes back a long way with Guazzini having been the coach that took them from the third division to their first title in 1998, had looked like he was Stade's knight in shining armour when he popped up as the frontman for FACEM earlier this month.

FACEM, which is a foundation for the improvement of conditions for children round the world, is headed by a young Haitian businessman Job Ariste, who also heads up the two mobile phone companies whose offices are in the same building in Montreal.

It is not a registered charity but a private foundation which is authorised to pursue 'without monetary profit for its members' activities of 'a national character, patriotic, religious, philanthropic, charitable, scientific...or sporting'.

It is allowed to finance sporting ventures but not to make a profit on them, though, unlike charities they don't have to produce tax receipts.

Earlier this year Stade Francais were rumoured to have been interested in signing Leinster duo, Johnny Sexton and Jamie Heaslip. In the end both players agreed new deals with the Irish province - which now may prove an even better decision.