Leicester Tigers: Aled Walters & Rob Taylor join backroom team at Welford Road
- Published
Aled Walters worked with Rassie Erasmus at Munster
Leicester have continued the restructure of their backroom team by adding Welshman Aled Walters as head of physical performance and New Zealander Rob Taylor as attack coach.
The pair will work under Steve Borthwick, who is due to take over in July from head coach - and director of rugby in waiting - Geordan Murphy.
Mike Ford, who had been attack coach, becomes the club's defence coach.
Ford takes over from Phil Blake, who left earlier in the week.
Tigers already had scrum coach Boris Stankovich and forwards coach Brett Deacon on their backroom team.
Carmarthen-born Walters played a key role with South Africa's winning World Cup team last November.
He has previously worked for four years at Scarlets, Taranaki in New Zealand Canberra-based Australian side Brumbies, and Munster, where he first worked with South Africa's World Cup-winning coach Rassie Erasmus.
Walters had been with South Africa since 2018, when he followed Erasmus to South Africa.
"These are uncertain times," he said. "The wish to be closer to families based in Wales and Ireland was a key consideration in making a very hard decision."
Taylor, who was born in New Zealand but has English heritage, joins from Australian Premiership club champions Sydney University. He was also the head coach for the NSW Country Eagles in Australia's National Rugby Championship.
Leicester, still waiting to discover whether the 2019-20 Premiership season will finish, currently lie 11th but are safe from relegation following Saracens' demise.
Analysis
BBC Radio Leicester's Tigers reporter Adam Whitty
Leicester have clearly decided to go all out to get some of the best coaching talent in the world to support director of rugby Geordan Murphy, and Aled Walters' arrival is as eye catching as that of incoming head coach Steve Borthwick.
Credited with turning around the Springboks' fitness before their World Cup triumph, Walters has already drawn parallels to his task for South Africa with that ahead of him at Welford Road. It seems an inspired appointment.
With Rob Taylor joining, and Mike Ford moving to defence coach, Tigers, for possibly the first time since Richard Cockerill's departure three years ago, have a director of rugby set-up with a full roster of dynamic, exciting, and most importantly, long-term appointments.