Dean Richards: I feared my time was up

An irreverent England team-mate had likened him to 'a slow, old carthorse' and Richards, now 37, might have wondered if he was heading for the knacker's yard when the Leicester directors sent for him that night as a matter of urgency. They announced his appointment as caretaker-manager the next day along with Dwyer's sacking and the rest, to coin a phrase, is history.

If Leicester beat Bath tomorrow, they will complete their third successive year of unbeaten Premiership rugby at Welford Road: played 33, won 31, drawn 2, tries for 115 against 48. Not since Newcastle battered their way to a colossal win there in December 1997, ironically Richards' last match, have the Tigers lost at home.

With two Premiership titles in the bag and a third on the horizon, Leicester will not be slow to reward their most famous player and his right-hand man, John Wells, with fat new contracts even though their existing agreements run until the end of next season. Under Peter Tom's chairmanship, the board will not wait that long to put the pair under long- term employment. The directors may have had it in the neck at the time for sacking Dwyer, but imagine their fate had Richards gone and taken Wells with him to work the oracle elsewhere.

Football being littered with examples of great players making anything but great managers, Leicester had no way of knowing how Richards would cope. Neither did the man himself, hence the board's decision in February 1998 to put him on what amounted to a three-month trial. The first thing he did was to enlist Wells as coach, a smart move in every respect.

As well as appointing an old back row sidekick, whom England have since added to their coaching coterie, the reinstated Tiger-in-chief was taking a deliberate and sensible step away from the engine room for a wider perspective.

'When I started, I divorced myself totally from the coaching,' he said. 'I felt there should be a gap between the players and the administration.

'Leicester wouldn't be where they are today without John. I leave the coaching to John and Pat Howard but I've also made it clear the buck stops with me. I was given a very short period to help the club out. I hadn't played for a couple of months, I was still on full wages and seeing as they asked me, I felt morally obliged.

'It was a bit of a shock because I thought Bob Dwyer would have been there for many years. Yes, there had been a few grumblings along the way but I felt Bob did a great deal in transforming the club from amateur to professional.'

Richards, of course, did a fair bit himself, not least in recruiting as well as moulding the forward foundation of the Tigers' dynasty in consultation with Dwyer's predecessor, Tony Russ. With a young Martin Johnson coming through, Richards ensured that Darren Gar-forth joined from Nuneaton, Richard Cockerill from Coventry and Dorian West from Nottingham, along with a likely young lad called Neil Back.

'We set out to build a pack in the space of three years who saw us through 1990s,' said Richards.

He made other smart moves besides putting Wells in charge of forward affairs, like signing uncapped lock Ben Kay from Waterloo and capitalising on Phil Larder's know-how as England's defensive coach to such an extent that nobody tends to concede fewer tries than the Tigers.

Richards also consulted with his former opposite number at Leicester City whose terraces he used to patrol in a previous incarnation as a policeman.

Martin O'Neill, before joining Celtic, had discussed a joint training session, Foxes and Tigers rolled into one, minus the ruck'n'mauls. A top-of-the-bill featuring Johnno against Matt Elliott, supported by a catchweight contest between Garforth and Robbie Savage, would have left standing room only.

'I had numerous chats with Martin and he was quite keen on a soccer-rugby session, obviously a non-contact one, ' said Richards, keeping a straight face. 'Then they had their run to Wembley and we never did get round to arranging it.'