Leicester did more than simply retain the Heineken Cup at Munster's tearful expense on Saturday. If there was any lingering pre-match doubt it can now be said with confidence there has never been a club rugby team in history with such extraordinary mental resilience. Winning, already a habit, has become an essential fix and the supply line shows no sign of fracture.
In advancing towards an unprecedented second successive European title, however, the English champions took an unnecessary detour through the moral maze which afflicts every major sport these days. It might be harsh to compare Neil Back's unpunished sleight of hand which crucially robbed Munster of scrum possession at the game's key moment to Maradona's hand of God antics in 1986, but they are not totally unrelated.
Though everyone now expects professional sportsmen to chase victory by all available means, a flagrant disregard for the concept of winning fair and square on major showpiece occasions still induces a hollow feeling.
Back, let it be stressed immediately, is one of the most impressive English players of the past 30 years, an example to any vertically challenged youngster with ambitions to play for his country. It is also by no means certain that Munster, who did not create enough on the day to feel overly cheated, would have scored the converted try they needed to win had Peter Stringer's put-in close to the Tigers' line not been brazenly diverted by Back's back-hander. But, like it or not, a nagging caveat must now be added to the plaudits Leicester are entitled to: are they really the best side in Europe, or do they just cheat better than anyone else?
Most genuine lovers of sport would feel there is a distinction but neither Back nor his manager Dean Richards felt any need, so to speak, to hold his hands up. "Is what Neil Back did any different from the way Peter Clohessy scrummaged?" asked Richards rhetorically. "I would say not. The choice made by Neil, who I believe to be a winner, was part of the winning process. If you cast him as a cheat then everyone who gave away a penalty on the field is a cheat too."
Others felt the only villain was the French referee Joël Jutge, a former scrum-half himself, who missed the entire episode. Was it any worse, they argued, than nudging an opponent in the line-out, tugging a shirt or killing the ball, as happens week in, week out?
To their credit, a deflated Munster declined to make a song and dance. The private reaction of one of their backroom staff - "If one of our guys had done it they'd have been made lord mayor" - was revealing but the disappointment of their departing coach Declan Kidney and the retiring Clohessy was obvious. Defeat would have been far easier to swallow had their fairytale been shattered by a piece of Zidanesque magic; instead their lineout failed to function, Leicester's defence was supreme and luck, yet again, was not on the side of the Irish.
With less than 10 minutes left the replacement centre Mike Mullins picked a lovely arcing line outside Ollie Smith before feeding his wing John O'Neill, who thundered towards the right corner. The same player had been denied a legitimate try in the narrow semi-final defeat against Stade Français last year; this time a dozen replays were unable to determine whether he, rather than just Leicester's cover-tackle saviour Austin Healey, touched the corner flag during his swallow-dive.
"I was hoping the fourth official liked me, which wasn't very likely," said a relieved Healey afterwards.
Though Tim Stimpson was voted man of the match it was Healey, for the second final running, who did most to tip the scales. Apart from scoring a 58th-minute try when he wriggled through Ronan O'Gara's weak tackle, he was a different man to the weary figure of recent weeks and his team-mate Rod Kafer saluted the England man as inspirational. "I'd compare it with a batsman walking out in a Lord's Test following a row of ducks and scoring a double century."
Geordan Murphy's first-half try also helped nullify Munster's promising start and allow the soon-to-disband ABC club of Graham Rowntree, Richard Cockerill and Darren Garforth to collect the trophy. "Everyone's been trying to knock us off our perch but there's a certain amount of resilience in our side that no one else has got," stressed Richards. "It starts at the top and goes right the way to the bottom.
Fair enough but, just as closing the roof for a final of an outdoor tournament strips away too many of the variables which lend rugby its fascination, Leicester cannot complain if their pragmatism leads to compliments of a back-handed variety. No one is proposing they start behaving like Bertie Wooster but the moral of Saturday's story is not as uplifting as it could have been.
Leicester: Stimpson; Murphy, Smith (Gelderbloom, 77min), Kafer, Tuilagi; Healey, Hamilton (Ellis, 51); Rowntree (Freshwater, 74), West, Garforth, M Johnson (capt), Kay, Moody, Back, Corry.
Tries: Murphy, Healey. Con: Stimpson. Pen: Stimpson.
Munster: Crotty (Staunton, 66); O'Neill, Henderson (Mullins, 67), Holland, Kelly; O'Gara, Stringer; Clohessy (Horan, 61), Sheahan, Hayes, Galwey (capt), O'Connell (O'Driscoll, 61), Quinlan, Wallace, Foley (Williams, 53).
Pens: O'Gara 3.
Referee: J Jutge (France).
Attendance: 74,000.
