Michael Cheika reckons he was only about 5 when he first visited Lebanon, the country where his parents spent their formative years before emigrating to Australia in the 1950s.
They joined the burgeoning Lebanese-Australian community that has for decades called Australia — and particularly Sydney — home.
The trips to Lebanon picked up again in his late teens for Cheika, one of rugby union’s most famous head coaches, who took heavyweight Australia to two World Cups — but has now switched codes to lead Lebanon's rugby league side into the sport's competitive zenith.
“I was actually caught there in the [2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon],” he says with a chuckle. “I actually didn’t wait for the expat evacuation. I got a car and somehow got out through Syria. Those were an interesting few days of my life, that’s for sure.
“But I’ve been many times,” he says, the last time being for an Asia Rugby coaching clinic in 2018.
“That was pretty cool. I never knew that those coaching clinics would be going on, so it was great.”
Rugby in Lebanon
That relationship with Lebanon, through sport or otherwise, took its next step when he was announced as the head coach of the Lebanese national rugby league team in 2020. Now he is leading them into the Rugby League World Cup, five years after the Cedars reached the quarter finals of the competition.
“I think that when the opportunity came in my chosen area, in my chosen field to be involved with the national team,” he says from England, where the tournament is taking place. "That's something you couldn't say no to. It seemed like a bit of a no-brainer." It's been a busy year for Cheika, who is also head coach of Argentina's rugby union side.
Born in Sydney, he was a talented player in Australia before turning to coaching. The Lebanese community in Australia — particularly Sydney — has a long and storied history, which is also reflected in sport.
“That community has had a huge involvement with rugby league down there. If you look at the clubs in Australia — the Bulldogs, Wests Tigers, St George, Parramatta — they’ve got strong influences of the Lebanese community in there,” he says, referring to some of the major clubs in Australia’s top division.
“I think that one of the huge areas where that post-Second World War influx of immigration to Australia really helped the transition for many people was through sport, through kids playing the sport.”
Lebanon is in the grips of an economic crisis that has been described by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern history, plunging most of the population into poverty.
The country remains deeply fractured with no end to the crisis in sight.
But whether it's been the run to the Asia Cup final by the men’s basketball team, or the all-female Lebanese dance troupe known as the Mayyas winning America’s Got Talent, it has often been sport or entertainment that has brought Lebanon together this year.
“It’s one of the big reasons why I want to be involved, because if you can give people the opportunity to take a couple of hours away from their troubles and their difficulties," Cheika says. "They can sit down, have a couple of drinks, watch their national team and relax, and wave the national flag — even if it's in a sport that they don't really know that well. Well, that's part of the job done right there and then. That’s what sport does."
And with not many Lebanese sporting teams taking part in games that are "getting televised and broadcast around the world", Cheika says the World Cup offers a great opportunity for the sport to be seen and the side to take part in the highest level of competition.
The sport is still growing in Lebanon — many are surprised to hear it has a national team, let alone one that is actually quite good.
A diverse team
The squad comprises an interesting mix of players, with the majority playing abroad. A handful are based in Lebanon, while others play in lower or regional leagues in Australia or England.
Some play in arguably the sport’s largest professional league, Australia’s National Rugby League, including Mitchell Moses, whose Parramatta Eels were the losing side in the NRL Grand Final this month.
Cheika has said he wants to integrate more Lebanon-based players into the national team while also boosting the profile of a sport that’s still developing in the country.
“If we can even get one more kid playing by being on the telly and someone seeing the game and the team playing that wasn't playing before, then that's a win.
“I think that being able to play sport, for kids in particular, is a hugely important part of their growth because they get to learn to play as a team, they get to learn what resilience is about, getting knocked down and getting back up again, they get to enjoy time with their friends.”
The Lebanese Rugby League Federation is in charge of growing the sport in Lebanon, helping run competitions at club, university and junior level.
There will always be a struggle for resources and Cheika realises that the because of the situation in which Lebanon finds itself, it will not always be easy. From the national team's perspective, more games at a high level as well as more matches in Lebanon “can really affect how the game is seen in the country as a whole”.
“I think one of the big things players want to show people here is a really unified team that's going to try to achieve a goal, and I think that's a really important image to show," he says. "It's not just about this World Cup, it's about then taking the team over there [to Lebanon], playing games there with more locals playing, so that more people can ... not even understand it, just enjoy it.”
Cheika talks fondly of footage he’s seen from a 2002 game between Lebanon and France’s rugby league teams that took place in Lebanon, with thousands of raucous fans in attendance.
“It was pretty awesome — the footage wasn't super clear because it was quite old. But there's no reason why we can't go back and create that atmosphere. Not necessarily through the passion for the game but just the passion for the flag, seeing your national team play and wanting to be behind them.”
