CIGARS & STRIPES!
Nick Easter has led minnows Chinnor to promotion... all while coaching the USA
NICK EASTER is midway through his chat with Mail Sport when the former england no 8’s phone starts ringing.
Chinnor president Simon Vickers is on the line, wanting to talk about new signings for next season now the men known as ‘ The Villagers’ will be playing in the Championship — one tier below the top flight. Chinnor are an ambitious club on the up. easter is the man in charge and is talking through his side’s national One promotion success.
‘ Don’t worry, it’s not a scheduled call so we’ll ignore it,’ he says with a smile, pressing red instead of green and continuing the conversation. easter, 45, is used to being in demand.
he is constantly busy as he balances trying to lead Chinnor up the english rugby pyramid alongside coaching with the USA ahead of them hosting the 2031 World Cup.
‘Sometimes there aren’t enough hours in the day,’ says easter. ‘But I love being busy. I loved my playing career and I’ve loved coaching. After we won promotion last weekend it was a bit of a late finish. The lads celebrated hard and I joined them! I went to bed at 3am but I did miss the Sunday session as I had to go to my in-laws for my nephew’s first birthday. I raised a glass of champagne there instead!’
A powerful carrier who won 54 england caps and made 281 appearances for harlequins, easter started his coaching career with the London club and by 2022, he was working at Worcester when the Warriors became the first of three Premiership clubs to hit financial oblivion. Like everyone at Sixways, easter lost his job on the spot.
Though it may not have seemed the most obvious move, easter headed to third-tier Chinnor to be their director of rugby. Last weekend, the Oxfordshire club hammered Moseley 52-0 to seal the league title and a place in the Championship.
‘I sometimes wonder what might have been if we’d been allowed to continue under Steve Diamond at Worcester,’ says easter. ‘We were going the right way and had good young players combined with some experienced ones. With another season of recruitment, you don’t know what would have happened.’
Instead, easter was able to light up a cigar to go with his champagne after Chinnor’s latest win. ‘ I joined in December 2022 and I’ve really enjoyed it,’ he says. ‘Since Worcester, I’d done a bit of work at Cheltenham College and a few masterclasses, but it was great to coach again regularly.’
‘Chinnor are part-time but when I joined it was an attractive proposition as they’d won two games from 11. I took over as director of rugby and had to learn new skills. It wasn’t all down to me but I realised I was the man in charge of the ship and if it went down, I’d have known it was down to my methods! It was a good challenge to get the team out of the relegation zone. They were underperforming and it’s gone pretty well.’
Chinnor’s average win in national One this season has been 40-15. They have won 21 of 25 league games and scored nearly 1,000 points.
‘We’ve kept faith with certain non-negotiables,’ says easter. ‘I’ve spent most of my career with professionals and we brought a level of professional detail around fitness and tactics without overcomplicating anything.
‘We brought an intensity to training that the guys weren’t used to. There was no reason why we couldn’t be the fittest team in the league. The work of the players has been phenomenal considering they are parttime and all have other jobs.
‘Going to the second tier is a big jump in terms of physicality. We need to be ready to see a few more injuries next season, so we’re going to invest in our strength and conditioning and medical teams. We’ll need a doctor and to sign a few players but we also want to reward those who got us promoted.’
easter’s other job as USA forwards and defence chief comes at an exciting time, as they try to grow the game in the States before hosting the 2031 World Cup.
‘Combining my two roles means I miss Chinnor games but I look at that in a positive way. If I’m working with international players, it allows me to improve my coaching which should make Chinnor a better team.
‘You can’t grow the game in a country if you’re not playing there and the USA haven’t played a home match for a long time. That’s going to change this summer.
‘We’ve got Romania and Scotland in the USA in July and those games will be fantastic for us to see our development. There’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes with 2031 in mind. It’s very exciting.’