Rewind to 2000/01: Leicester land unique English rugby treble

Bath’s rise from being at the bottom of the heap three years ago, without a trophy to their name since 2008, to the most dominant team in England has been well covered in the build-up to the final match of the domestic season.

Johann van Graan’s team have ticked every box asked of them so far, winning the Premiership Rugby Cup at Exeter in March, the EPCR Challenge Cup in Cardiff in May, and they are now just one win away from completing what would be a unique, but not an exclusive, treble.

Victory against Leicester in Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership final would see them claim a third piece of silverware – more than they had managed in the last 29 years, and also rid the Tigers of the record as the only team to have landed a domestic and European treble.

We go back to 2000/01, when the Tigers won the league, then the inaugural Zurich Championship, against Bath at Twickenham, before rounding off a season like no other with a thrilling 34-30 win over Stade Francais in the final of the Heineken Cup.

The Zurich Premiership

Under the expert guidance of director of rugby Dean Richards, Tigers claimed their third consecutive Premiership title after finishing eight points clear of Wasps, with Bath a further four points back in third. The league season started in mid-August and, before September was out, Leicester had already lost twice, away to Saracens and Bristol. However, they put together a 12-match winning run, with their only other defeat coming against Gloucester, at Kingsholm, in the penultimate match of the campaign. It was immaterial because, by then, Leicester had already secured the title. A full house of 16,000 fans came to salute their heroes for the final match of the season, a 37-5 win against Harlequins, as Leicester finished unbeaten at home for the second consecutive campaign.

The Zurich Championship

Zurich’s title sponsorship deal with the Premiership included the introduction of an end-of-season competition featuring the top eight sides in the league, designed to give the domestic season a grand finale. As is rugby’s want, the goalposts were moved halfway through the season, with the game’s rulers deciding that the Zurich Championship winners would also be declared league champions. There was a public outcry and notable players like Neil Back made their feelings known, the England flanker labelling it “a joke.” Premiership Rugby backed down and it would be another two years before they got their way. Leicester need not have worried. Home play-off wins over London Irish and Northampton put Leicester through to the final, where they beat Bath 22-10 in front of a crowd of 33,500, thanks to tries from captain Martin Johnson, scrum-half Austin Healey and wing Winston Stanley. Leicester would have won by more had Tim Stimpson, who contributed 260 points in the season, not missed four kicks at goal.

The Heineken Cup

A week after the play-off final, Leicester met Stade Francais in the Heineken Cup final, a match that was the polar opposite of the insipid fare that had been seen at Twickenham. Leicester made the knockout stages as winners of Pool 6, despite suffering a shock 18-11 defeat at Pontypridd in round three. Swansea were dispatched 41-10 at Welford Road in the quarter-finals before Tigers made it through to their second European final with a 19-15 win over Gloucester, Stimpson putting his bad day at the office behind him to boot 14 points. Leon Lloyd, who scored Leicester’s only try in the semi-final, went one better at Parc des Princes, the centre capping the game of his life by scoring the match-winner at the death in the right-hand corner after a brilliant break through the middle by Austin Healey. Stade Francais had led for virtually the whole match, with Diego Dominguez scoring all his side’s points through his deadly goal-kicking. But the Tigers fully deserved their win, Neil Back adding another try to complement Lloyd’s brace.

Leicester did the European/Premiership double the following season, but quarter-final defeats to Bristol and Harlequins, in the Zurich Championship and Powergen Cup, denied them another treble.

Another golden opportunity arose in 2007, this time under the management of Pat Howard, who’d been a key contributor to the 2001 treble as a player.

The first leg was achieved after an exhilarating 41-35 win over the Ospreys in the final of the EDF Cup. Then, a month later, Gloucester were demolished 44-16, as Leicester were crowned league champions. But the third piece of silverware eluded Leicester, as Wasps gave Lawrence Dallaglio a winning farewell in the Heineken Cup final, also at Twickenham.

It was a disappointing end to Howard’s reign in charge, with the Australian leaving for home and quitting elite-level coaching at the age of 32.

A few years ago, in an interview in The Rugby Paper, Howard reflected on the missed opportunity.

“A few have reminded me I went out on a losing note, and I have reflected on that one game so many times,” he remarked.

“I over-coached. I gave the players too much information. You’re in the heat of the battle and in a European final and you want no excuses, so sometimes you try and cover the bases of every scenario.

“You want to make sure that everybody feels that they are very well prepared, whereas you are really doing it for your own peace of mind. That’s not how you coach; you coach to get the best out of people on every given day.

“We were, I think, the better team all year, but that doesn’t matter. Not only did I think they outplayed us, but I think Gats out-coached us.”