HOW THE MIGHTY ARE FALLEN

Leicester Tigers have sacked Dean Richards, their coach of seven years, and before that iconic number 8 for Leicester and England (he was a policeman during the amateur days and was an integral part of the England pack famously described by the one and only Bill Mclaren as "festooned with constabulary"). When he played Leicester still used letters rather than numbers on their shirts to denote positions - his happened to be "G" - as far as most of the Welford Road faithful were concerned it stood for God.

On the face of it it looks cruel. During his 7 years Leicester won 4 league titles and 2 European Cups, but they have struggled this season, are out of the running for any silverware and even have the humiliation of looking over their shoulders to see the black hole of relegation not far behind, though it will come to that.

I think the reality though is that the foundations for Leicesters winning run of recent years were laid earlier on by Bob Dwyer, who was ousted in a player-led rebellion after 3 years of rebuilding a team that had been consistently second fiddle to much-hated rivals Bath. It was Dwyer who brought consistency to the club. Leivcester already had a great pack, their traditional strength, but he brought in players such as Joel Stransky and Austin Healey (love him or hate him, he is a great player) and recognised the potential of palyers like Geordan Murphy, who we hae been missing so much this season. Before his arrival the backs had been laborious and results had turned around the forwards power and ability to grind down an opposition pack. with a new back line, and an alternative to the rolling maul, suddenly Leicester were scoring tries and winning games they would previously have lost.

I think the truth is that Richards inheritied a team that was just coming to the peak, had a few good years with it, but has been shown to be lacking when the team started to break up as players moved on or retired. Games got closer, the opposition caught up, and this season it has all come tumbling down around him.

I don't like to see his reign ending this way - after 23 years for the club I think they could have found a way for him to save face - at least call it a resignation - but I think it was inevitable.