Kiernan bags Achievement Award

TOM KIERNAN, the first chairman of ERC and one of the founding fathers of the Heineken Cup, was yesterday honoured for his part in the launch of Europe's premier club rugby tournament.

The 69-year-old former full-back, pictured, who won 54 Irish caps and captained both his country and the & Lions, was ERC chairman from 1995 to 1999. In London yesterday, he was announced as the inaugural winner of the Heineken Cup Achievement Award.

ERC chairman Jean-Pierre Lux said: “Tom did an outstanding job in helping launch the tournament at extremely short notice and then championing its principles and objectives."

Mr Kiernan responded: “I have to share this honour with the late Vernon Pugh who was responsible for not only instigating the Heineken Cup concept, but also so many other things around the advent of professionalism in rugby in the 1990s.”