‘We want to make our own history in this new Leicester era’

Ollie Hassell-Collins understands why his new club Leicester Tigers are not mentioned in the same breath as La Rochelle, Toulouse, Leinster and the other usual suspects as tips to win this season’s Champions Cup.

“They are in those conversations because of what they’ve done in previous years,” says the 24-year-old England wing, who joined Leicester from London Irish in the summer.

But is Hassell-Collins happy with that state of affairs as he takes in Leicester’s European Cup winners of 2001 and 2002, commemorated in photos and trophy cabinets around their stadium at Welford Road? Not a bit of it. In common with Leicester’s’ recently arrived head coach, Dan McKellar, Hassell-Collins wants similar success.

“As a group we want to make our own history, we want to have our own names on that wall,” Hassell-Collins tells i.

“You understand the history that the club has, but you don’t want it overpower you. We want to come into this new era, with new coaches, a young group, and win things. This is a tournament that is close to the number one on the list and we want to get Leicester’s name back on there.”

As Hassell-Collins is aware, Leicester have only two losing quarter-finals against Leinster in 2022 and 2023 to show for the last seven years of the Champions Cup. This season they kick off by hosting Stormers on Sunday, and to make the last 16 they need to finish in the top four of a fearsome pool in which they also play Stade Francais (currently fifth in France), alongside La Rochelle and Leinster, winners and runners-up respectively in the last two Champions Cups.

So when Hassell-Collins says “we are a little bit underdogs”, it may be an understatement, even while acknowledging the Stormers’ URC runners-up have sent an understrength team. “We have 24 internationals in our squad, which is crazy,” he says, “so we have got a hell of a squad that can go far, I think.”

Hassell-Collins has started seven of Leicester’s eight Premiership matches this season, scoring tries against Sale and Gloucester (two), and last week a smiling short-side finish from Solomone Kata’s set-up against Newcastle. “Give him the ball in hand and he will do something,” Tom Varndell, a try-scoring great from Leicester’s recent past, said after the victory at Gloucester, one of three wins on the spin.

Hassell-Collins, who had two caps for England in last season’s Six Nations, had agreed his Leicester move before London Irish went bust, officially, in June, but the fallout from their demise and those of Wasps and Worcester, still ripples. Ben Loader, his former London Irish team-mate will be a Stormers opponent on Sunday, while on Leicester’s other wing is Josh Bassett, once of Wasps.

The Tigers also have Mike Brown in their squad, and England back-three star Anthony Watson close to a comeback after injury. Hassell-Collins is happily ensconced in a “nice house” in Market Harborough with his partner Eloise and their four cats.

“I coped with it differently – I signed with Leicester before it happened,” says Hassell-Collins. “A lot of friends were out of contract, scraping around, and there are a few boys who have either packed it in or found a job in the City.

“Others like Will Joseph and Henry Arundell [now at Harlequins and Racing respectively] must have been pretty nervous, but they found something. You then think about the first-years just signed from under-18s, how excited they would have been, and they now will go to uni or I don’t know what. The group chat is still alive and we all helped each other in that way.

“It’s been good at Leicester. I already had a connection with Freddie [Steward, the international full-back] from England camps, so that made it easier. It’s now about getting that more on an intimate level, in personal life, to make the connection stronger, and that will come in time.

“Anthony Watson is a world-class player and it’s exciting to see what he can do. I spend a lot of time with him around my footwork, and edge stuff. As a team that back three is going to be pretty powerful. I came to Leicester to get that challenge and not feel comfortable, and it will make me a better player, whether we are rotating or I am playing every week.”

It helps to have McKellar saying he wants players “comfortable to express themselves”, even while he fends off questions about the Wallabies’ vacancy in his Australian homeland. To Hassell-Collins, that comfort means, for one thing, being gleefully free to keep painting his fingernails. Green, red and white for Leicester now? Nope. “My pinkie and my thumb are baby blue, and the index is a smiley face,” he says.

“Then we’ll mix it up for Christmas.” And in the wider sense? “I suppose expressing ourselves has two sides. On the pitch, it’s not worrying about mistakes – which doesn’t mean throwing a silly offload, but if it is on and it doesn’t come off then it’s fine, we’ll fix it and go again.

“Off the pitch, I am a bit eccentric with the nails and the tattoos and stuff, but I came from Irish feeling comfortable, and I wouldn’t want to change that and I haven’t been – the boys have been great.”