Parling prepares for return to club that 'shaped him'

Geoff Parling established himself as an England international after he left Newcastle for Leicester Tigers

Before winning Premiership titles, England caps and British and Irish Lions honours as a player, there was Geoff Parling the part-time coach with full-on ambitions.

In 2003, at the age of 20, the youngster from Stockton-on-Tees was only just emerging from the Newcastle academy and starting on what would become a decorated playing career littered international acclaim and silverware - which he would go on to hoard at Leicester Tigers and Exeter Chiefs.

But even in those formative years playing at Kingston Park, Parling was setting himself up for a coaching career that he would dedicate himself to almost two decades later.

Now, as a rookie boss in charge of Leicester Tigers – the club he left Falcons for as a player in 2009 – he travels back to Newcastle on Friday for the first time as a head coach.

For Parling, who was working as Australia assistant coach before taking the Tigers job in the summer, the Prem game is a high-profile return to where his coaching career got off to a modest start alongside another of the Prem's new breed of tacticians.

"I was always interested in coaching," Parling told BBC Sport.

"Myself and Joe Shaw, who is now Saracens head coach, we did a bit of coaching together at Newcastle University.

"I did my badges early and coached everywhere I went. When I was at Exeter I did a bit at Taunton Titans and enjoyed it.

"I don't think it was 'I want to be that guy' – I just enjoyed it. I was just doing something I enjoyed."

It was in those early days, battling to try and prove himself as a Falcon of the future that Parling realised a few things about himself.

To make it as a player, he would need to excel in a way he maybe could not physically – a theme he reflects on in an almost self-deprecating way when talking about a career which took him to some of rugby's greatest heights.

"When you were a player that was probably not as physically dominant as other players, you have to learn the game in different ways, that probably helped," Parling said.

When asked if that set him apart as a 'rugby nerd', he smiled and replied: "I'm not a nerd, but a 'nause'."

A 'rugby nause' in the case put forward by Parling is slang for a 'studious, enthusiastic rugby know-it-all'.

And the player Parling became, the man he has grown up to be and coach he has emerged as in his 40s is grounded in who he was at Newcastle – part-time coach, starry-eyed player and 'rugby nause' combined.

"I don't think anything is born inherent into you; I think you are a product of your genetics and development," he said.

"I think most of that you get from being a kid, from your parents, and of course your formative years at a club will have a big impact on you, and that is what Newcastle is.

"When you finish playing, you always feel like you had one club. And I always described Leicester as my club because I probably felt that is where I fit in the most in a weird way, or it was a place where I agreed with the way we were playing the game.

"But a massive nod to Newcastle, I was there for seven years and came though the academy, where there were great coaches and great people, some of whom are still there.

"We are all shaped by our environments, and the longer we spent there and the younger we were in that environment. And it's not just Newcastle, but growing up in the north east, in Stockton, in Teesside - a pretty down-to-earth area."

Back to Newcastle, but not as Parling knew it

Overseeing three wins in his first five Prem games in charge of Tigers means Parling takes a mid-table Leicester side coming to terms with his new ways to a bottom-of-the-pile Newcastle team coming to grips with a much more high-profile rebrand.

Their takeover by the energy drink giant saw the club rebranded as Newcastle Red Bulls. They also became the first rugby side to form part of the Austrian company's stable of sports clubs.

They are yet to win a Prem match since that happened, but the break for international fixtures in recent weeks has allowed the hastily reimagined club to pull together during a training camp in Yorkshire.

"I think when Red Bull took over, people we expecting them to [snaps fingers]," Parling said.

"And that's not how change happens, really. They have had quite a disrupted season with people arriving at different times.

"But I'm expecting a tough team who will try and play in your area of the field and try and force mistakes and use a bit of quality of the back of it."