After chasing down an intruder at their Manchester hotel, Lebanon players insist they won’t be overawed by a World Cup quarter final against Australia, as coach Michael Cheika prepares to take charge of the Cedars and Argentina Pumas in the same weekend.
The Cedars will meet the Kangaroos in Huddersfield on Friday night after thumping Jamaica 74-12 in their final pool match – a win that secured Lebanon’s place at France 2025 – but Cheika also has commitments with the Pumas for their rugby union Test against England 48 hours later.
Having dealt with two robberies from their team hotel in the past week, little is likely to worry the Lebanon players, who gave chase after a thief stole a laptop and other items from the team room of their hotel on the eve of the match against the Reggae Warriors in Leigh.
“They thought they were in an episode of Law and Order,” said Cheika, who discovered laptops and other equipment had been stolen last week when he woke early for a Zoom call.
They say we are part-timers, I think the other thing we are doing part-time is security work.
Michael Cheika
Eels halfback Mitchell Moses, Wests Tigers playmaker Adam Doueihi, Bulldogs winger Jacob Kiraz and Rabbitohs winger Josh Mansour are the only NRL stars in the Lebanon squad, with most players selected from the NSW and Queensland Cup competitions or lower tiers.
However, they have taken confidence from their opening performance against New Zealand, in which the Cedars trailed 18-12 in the second half before crashing to a 34-12 loss after Doueihi was sent off.
“We have been really blessed to have the opportunity to play against New Zealand and now Australia,” Cheika said.
“When you are coming to a World Cup you want to test yourself against the best and that is certainly what it will be as a test.
“It is quite logical that no one would expect us to win. We understand that and we wouldn’t feel like a victim, but our job is to try and defy the logic and try to get ourselves in a situation where we can apply some pressure and see what happens.
“Obviously because a lot of the lads are from Australia, this is a great match up for them. It is a real challenge that a lot of the players want to go and meet head on. We understand that we are the underdogs. That is pretty clear.”
Cheika will split his time between Leeds and London this week as the Lebanon and Argentina teams prepare for next weekend’s matches, but he has been planning for this scenario and has empowered Matt King and Felipe Contepomi to take leading roles.
Two Doueihi kicks and a try for Miski
The two teams had dinner together in Manchester last week and the players understand how Cheika plans to meet his coaching commitments for them.
“Everything here has to be nailed down first because we are in a World Cup and that is extremely important,” Cheika said.
“I have done a lot of preparation and worked with the coaches from Argentina, they were here from Sunday through to Wednesday last week so I was able to spend a couple of days with them because we had days off.
“It is obviously a huge game for Argentina, as well, and I don’t want to cross over too much. England are a team we will play in the [rugby union] World Cup next year.
“There has been a lot of talk about ‘can you do that’, but for me it is about trying to do it properly – not just do it but do it where I am making a contribution to both teams and an important one as the coach.
“For me to think that I would be coaching a game against the Kangaroos, it never would have entered into my mind so now it is here I want to profit from the opportunity and learn from the experience of being in that scenario and going against a team like that.”
Doueihi said the Cedars have achieved their goal of qualifying for the quarter finals to secure a place at the next World Cup in France but they still had ambitions of going deeper in the tournament by beating the Kangaroos.
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“We showed we can match it with the World No.1 at the moment, New Zealand, in our first game of the tournament and Mitch [Moses] had only joined us for a week so combos were still forming,” Doueihi said.
“I feel as though we have built in every game and the more training sessions and games we get together the better we are getting.
“It is do or die now. I feel like we have played a pretty similar brand during these first three games and we can’t afford to try to just throw the ball everywhere, we need to stick to our structures.
“Kingy has given us really good defensive and attacking structures, and we feel that if we nail it that we can beat anyone on the day. We will be doing that this week and finding some deficiencies in the Aussie team and try to exploit them.”