Injuries to Healey and Johnson add to Leicester’s woes
Austin Healey undergoes exploratory knee surgery today after limping off during the second half against their quarter-final conquerors.
And No 8 Will Johnson, younger brother of Leicester and England captain Martin, will not play again this season due to knee ligament damage sustained at Welford Road.
Healey, capped 50 times by England, has made just two comeback appearances since recovering from an Achilles' tendon problem that sidelined him for more than three months. It now looks as though his season might be over.
England boss Clive Woodward, who was deprived of an injured Healey's services throughout the recent Six Nations Grand Slam campaign, is sure to monitor developments closely, especially with the short summer tour to New Zealand and Australia less than two months away.
Despite Sunday's 20-7 defeat, Leicester look certain to qualify for next season's Heineken Cup, even though they face a possible first season without silverware since 1998.
The Tigers' bid to land an unprecedented hat-trick of Heineken Cup crowns collapsed when Munster cut loose during the closing 20 minutes.
But if Zurich Premiership leaders Gloucester secure just one point from their Good Friday clash at Sale Sharks later this week, Leicester will be left occupying an automatic Heineken Cup qualifying slot.
It would mean Gloucester filling two seeded places as Premiership play-off qualifiers and Powergen Cup winners so the Powergen Cup place would go the fourth-placed Premiership finishers, a position currently filled by Leicester.
Tigers could conceivably still make the Premiership play-offs as a top-three finisher but they are currently seven points behind Wasps, although with a game in hand.
There is also another possible route into the 2003/04 Heineken Cup for Leicester, courtesy of the inaugural Premiership wildcard play-offs.
The four highest-placed Premiership clubs who have not already qualified for the Heineken Cup England has six places next season will play off in home and away semi-finals followed by a May 31 final the winners securing top-flight European status.
Qualification hopes will be of scant consolation to the Tigers though, whose 23-month reign as European champions was abruptly halted by a magnificent Munster side. It was the Tigers first European home defeat since 1999/2000 and first-ever home loss in the Heineken cup knockout stages.
As a result, England has no semi-final representative for the first time in six seasons of Heineken Cup participation.
"If we don't win anything this season then we don't, but it won't be for the lack of trying," said Leicester's rugby director Dean Richards. "The boys put it in week in, week out.
"I just think that on the day, we did not play the game in the right areas and we made too many unforced errors. If you lose a quarter-final or a semi-final like we did we were comprehensively beaten then it is disappointing. We just didn't turn up. It was not the fact that we lost, it was the manner in which we lost."
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