Coming in at number seven in our countdown of the greatest Heineken Cup players of all time is Martin Johnson. Loved by some, despised by a lot but respected by all, the Leicester stalwart enjoyed a superb club career.

7. Martin Johnson (Leicester Tigers)

In an era when Sky have created a buzz and hype around the world in regard to rugby, few have managed to escaped the glitz and glamour. Martin Johnson’s direct, no-nonsense style was certainly one that remained from a bygone era of uncompromising, front foot rugby. The Leicester lock has a trophy cabinet overflowing with medals from every competition he ever competed in. Serial winners don’t come much more pronounced then ‘Johnno’. His career began with Leicester Tigers in 1989 and when he finally announced his retirement 2005 the rugby universe had altered greatly in the intervening years. Like so many of the Heineken Cup greats on this list, Johnson was a true one club man with each of his 362 club appearances, spanning 16 years, coming in the famous Leicester jersey.

Having began his career in the semi-professional era, Johnson was cut from a different cloth to the majority of modern day players. He played in the first of three of Leicester’s Heineken Cup finals in 1997, but he came out on the losing side in a comprehensive defeat to Brive. After the final, club stalwart and captain Dean Richards announced his retirement which saw Johnson take over the reigns as Tigers captain for the following season. As would occur throughout his career, success wasn’t long in following Johnson. He lead his side up the steps to collect the Heineken Cup trophy in 2001 and again in 2002. Johnson’s career was split evenly between the pre and post Heineken Cup era, and while his 51 appearances lag some way behind the appearance pacesetters, the second row was certainly a prime example of the saying ‘quality over quantity’.

The lock was a natural leader and filled the players around him with the confidence that they could beat anyone. That same bloody minded stubbornness and belligerence which he displayed on a regular basis served to both endear him so much to his own supporters while marking him out as Public Enemy No.1 to his rival fans. Johnson seemed to thrive under that title and that was often when he delivered his best. That hunger and desire to win sometimes resulted in Johnson taking disciplinary matters into his own hands, and sometimes his team suffered from his actions, but the fine line he walked gave him the edge from which his game excelled. The following clip shows Johnson delivering his own form of a justice to a Stade Francais player he deemed to have overstepped the mark.

The Heineken Cup wasn’t the only competition in which teams under Johnson’s leadership thrived. He skippered Leicester to four Premiership titles during his seven-year tenure. Leicester were the most fearsome side in England at the time and, led by their hard-nosed captain, they steamrolled most before them. Leicester also won one League title in the pre premiership era, before Johnson was captain, which meant he finished his career with two European and five domestic winners medals.

His tale was no less storied on the international scene where the man from the English midlands held the William Webb Ellis trophy high above his head in Sydney in 2003. To this day England remain the only Northern Hemisphere side to win a rugby World Cup, and Johnson the only Northern Hemisphere captain to raise it. As well as steering the Leicester ship, Johnson navigated England through a prolonged period of success, when in addition to the World Cup they also won three Six Nations Championships in four years. Johnson’s iconic status as a player with England eventually led to him becoming the head coach of the national team. The 84-time capped lock’s coaching career spanned an ill-fated three years before he was deemed surplus to requirements after England’s disappointing World Cup showing in 2011.

Johnson may not have cracked the management nut, but as a player he will forever be respected as one of the toughest players to take the field. The grounding he learned during his time in the semi-professional ranks clearly gave him a strong work ethic that carried through to the full-time era. Many in Ireland will never forget, let alone forgive Johnson for his role in the incident that resulted in Irish president Mary McAleese having to walk off the red carpet and onto the grass, to meet the Irish team before an international at Lansdowne Road in 2003. They will however always admire Johnson for the ability and leadership he brought to the table.

Johnson may have spent the majority of his career crashing over would-be tacklers and taking the shortest route to success. On this occasion, in one of his more extravagant moments, he fell foul of the glamour and sidestepped his way past the last line of defence to cross the try line. Not quite the ‘swan dive’ celebration he so detested, but in Johnson’s world not so removed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNuBP5QOYw

Ozer McMahon,Pundit Arena.

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