Richards defends 'cheat' Back

Leicester coach Dean Richards strongly defended Neil Back after the England flanker robbed Munster of their last-gasp Heineken Cup victory chance at the Millennium Stadium this afternoon.

The Tigers deservedly led 15-9 when Munster won a scrum five metres from their opponents line in the third minute of stoppage time.

Munster scrum-half Peter Stringer went to feed the ball in, only for Back to drag it back onto the Leicester side of the scrum illegally with his hand.

Stringer was incensed, but neither referee Joel Jutge, nor his two touch-judges saw the incident and Leicester cleared the danger and clinched victory to become the first side to successfully defend Europe’s premier club competition.

‘‘Neil Back is a winner. It is part of the winning mentality,’’ said Richards.

‘‘Is it any different to Peter Clohessy driving in at the scrum, or any other penalty Munster gave away for that matter.

‘‘If you call Neil Back a cheat, you are calling any player who concedes a penalty a cheat.’’

Munster skipper Mick Galwey claimed the referee informed him he had not seen the incident, while coach Declan Kidney refused to comment on the incident.

However, Galwey generously admitted it had not ‘robbed’ his team of victory because they had not deserved to win anyway.

‘‘They scored two tries and we didn’t get any,’’ he said. ‘‘I believe the teams who score the tries should win the games.’’

It was Munster’s second final defeat in three years and is the end of an era at the club.

Clohessy is retiring, Galwey is standing down as skipper, while Kidney is leaving to take a full-time job alongside Ireland coach Eddie O’Sullivan.

‘‘It is heartbreaking to lose again but it has been a great journey and Munster will win it some day,’’ said Galwey.

‘‘There are younger players coming through who have great hunger and passion. After the first defeat we said ‘you have to lose one to win one’, now ‘it’s third time lucky’.

Although Munster enjoyed parity in possession, they rarely threatened Leicester’s impregnable defence.

Winger John O’Neill did make one burst for the line, but Austin Healey’s covering tackle forced Jutge to call for television assistance and replays showed the Munster man had touched the corner flag.

By that time, Healey, starting at stand-off, had already made a major attacking contribution, darting through Ronan O’Gara’s weak tackle to put Leicester in front for the first time.

‘‘I was pretty lucky to get selected at fly-half,’’ admitted the maverick England man.

‘‘I have not been at my best lately and I owed the lads a big game. It would have been a long summer if we had lost, so I went out and gave it everything.’’

Geordan Murphy had grabbed the opening score, but Tim Stimpson’s failure to convert saw Munster take a narrow interval lead through O’Gara’s two penalties.

The Irish stand-off landed a third shortly after the interval but Munster were pegged back by Healey’s try, fell further behind when Stimpson landed a penalty, then saw O’Gara miss two kickable opportunities which would have sent the game into extra-time.

It completes a Premiership-Heineken Cup double for the second season running, and only their elimination from the opening round of the derided Zurich Championship prevents Leicester from repeating last year’s astounding Treble triumph.

‘‘The boys set their goals at the start of the season and although we didn’t achieve them all, we got the big ones,’’ said Richards.

‘‘It has been a difficult year because everyone has been trying to knock us off our perch.

‘‘To a degree they have done a very good job but there is a resilience in our side that no-one else has got.

‘‘It starts at the top with Martin Johnson and goes right down to the bottom.’’