Tigers fans favourite takes top job at Esher

From the Tigers website:

"Former Leicester Tigers centre Ollie Smith has been named as new head coach at Esher Rugby.Smith, a Premiership and Heineken Cup winner in his time with Tigers, has been at Harlequins since his return to England from a spell in Montpelier but suffered a serious knee injury last season.
He coached Esher's backs this year and now steps up to head coach, with former Saracens lock Kris Chesney as assistant.

Esher will play in National One next season and Smith said: "This is a special club and I am hugely excited about what lies ahead."

Smith, who will be 30 this August, played 182 times for Tigers, scoring 28 tries.

Esher chairman of rugby John Inverdale said: "We were overwhelmed by the interest shown in the positions from both at home and overseas, and it has taken us a long time to sift through the many options and permutations. Ollie and Kris bring huge experience of top-class rugby to the club and we are all looking forward to what the next season will bring.""

Great shame that such a talent had his career curtailed so early. A much beloved player by Tigers fans as he went from watching from the Crumbie to playing in front of it. Good to hear that he's landed a good job in the sport and I hope he comes home in a few years time to work alongside Geordie and help the Tigers backs.

Shame to hear that he's had to bow out of the game, but I think it's been on the cards for a while now.

Really pleased that my local club(ish) has got him as their head coach too! Hopefully he'll turn their fortunes around a bit and we'll be back in the championship pronto.

Btw when I read the title I was expecting a peice on Mauger...

Oh and you spelt Esher wrong in the title

Conor was not at all optimistic about his injury, so while it's sad to see his career end like this, I doubt anyone's really surprised

I presume Chesney will be a player coach, he's a beast of a player still good enough to grace the Jeff so he'll tear up a few trees in D1.

Interesting move by Esher to appoint 2 very experienced players, yet very inexperienced coaches. They do need to invest in players too as they were simply not good enough for the Championship and there are a number of quality sides in D1 at the moment too. Regardless, good luck to them both

I suspect Esher liked what they saw of Smith when he coached their backs last season and wanted him to have a bit more authority. Agree that Chesney being the beast he is will be a real advantage to the club, he's not that young so I can't imagine he'll play often but I wouldn't be suprised to see him play the odd game as required.

With Ollie being in charge I wonder if Esher will manage to DR a couple of Tigers youngsters? I think Rotherham have been lined up to give some of the academy experience next year as Notts are wanting to concentrate on promotion and want to play down the link to Tigers.