Exclusive: Martin Johnson identifies moment Leicester Tigers dynasty began to 'creak' amid England RWC '03 tilt
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Published 30/03/2025 at 11:01 GMT+1
Leicester Tigers legend Martin Johnson sat down with former World Cup-winning England team-mate Lawrence Dallaglio for TNT Sports to discuss his illustrious playing career. From "knowing we were going to win the league by February" to feeling that things were "starting to creak" around the time that England conquered the world, Johnson lifts the lid on his remarkably successful spell with Tigers.
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Before conquering the world with England, legendary second row Martin Johnson had already established a reputation as a serial winner at Leicester Tigers.
However, in a sit-down interview with former England team-mate Lawrence Dallaglio, the man who captained his country to 2003 Rugby World Cup glory in Australia admitted there was one downside to hitting that career high.
Johnson captained Tigers through a remarkable period of success, winning five Premiership titles between 1995 and 2002 and back-to-back European Cups in 2001 and 2002.
Speaking to Dallaglio as part of TNT Sports’ Premiership Icons series, the former British & Irish Lions skipper and five-time Six Nations winner reflected fondly on his period of domestic dominance, having got there the hard way.
"We had grown up together, we had taken our beatings. We had to fight and scratch to try and become better than Bath," Johnson said of his early years at Leicester.
"Around that time (1995), we started recruiting. As an amateur club, recruitment happened, but it was all a grey area.
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"Austin Healey was a fantastic signing, Will Greenwood came to the club, and we just got a bit of stability, took a grip of it and off we went.
"We won that first league title in 1998/99. Without being cocky, we were good. We were very good and very proud of being good and wanting to win. We had a very strong squad at that point."
That proved to be the first of four consecutive Premiership wins for Tigers, but Johnson explained why the third and penultimate of those campaigns was the best.
"I think 2000/01 [was my favourite]," he said.
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"The difference then, when it was a straight league, was that it felt like every game was vital, particularly here [in Leicester].
"I remember those last two years we won it, we would have a meeting Friday about the opposition and who we were playing - this guy, this guy, this guy - and they would come here to play the game, and they weren’t playing.
"Because the opposition thought ‘we’re not going to win anyway, so we’ll rest our key players and try and win our home games.’
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"And actually, those last two years of winning the league, without sounding too cocky, by February we knew we were going to win it."
However, Johnson and Leicester did eventually lose their grip on the crown just after the lock reached the pinnacle of the sport by clinching the Webb Ellis Cup.
"We were probably starting to creak by the start of that season [2002/03]," Johnson said.
"You [Wasps] beat us at the end of the 2001/02 season [36-24]. Properly beaten. I remember thinking ‘that was different – they were better.’
"There was an edge about them that hasn’t been there for a while. We got back from the World Cup in ‘03 and we were bottom of the league because our whole forward pack was in Australia. We were all hands to the pump and trying to get back."
Johnson later came agonisingly close to the dream send-off when he took Leicester to the top of the Premiership table in his final season of 2004/05.
Tigers reached the final, but came up against Dallaglio’s Wasps, and were undone in a 39-14 defeat that marked the end of the playing career of one of England’s most-decorated and celebrated players.
"We were top of the league, we had a good season, got to a European semi-final, then we lost. You guys were very good at playing finals," Johnson told Dallaglio.
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"We played you five times that season: three wins, a draw and a loss. But that’s the one you’ve got to win. I just think when we got to that final, we were a bit flat. We tried to raise ourselves for numerous games. It was a bit of a strange one.
"I remember coming away from that game just disappointed for us that we lost. Not for me that it was my last game, just that it was a disappointing way to end the season."
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