Neil Back
Encyclopedia
Neil Antony Back is a former international rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 footballer for England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

, who also played for Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers is an English rugby union club that plays in the Aviva Premiership.Leicester are the most successful English club since the introduction of league rugby in 1987, a record 9 times English champions - 3 more than either Bath or Wasps, the last of which was in 2010...

, and captained both England and Leicester during his career.

During his international career, he gained 66 caps for England, captaining them four times and was part of the 2003 World Cup winning side. He played as an openside flanker
Flanker (rugby union)
A flanker is a position in the sport of rugby union. Flankers play in the forwards, and are generally classified as either blindside, or openside flankers; numbers six and seven respectively. The name comes from their position in a scrum in which they flank each set of forwards...

. He is married with two daughters.

Back and Nick Beal
Nick Beal
Nicholas David Beal is a rugby union player who played at Fullback for Northampton Saints, England and the Lions. He attended the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe....

 share the unusual distinction of being contemporary players whose names are anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...

s of each other's, and they both worked for insurance company Equity & Law at the same time, too.

Biography

Back was born in Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...

, where he attended the Woodlands School
Woodlands School, Coventry
The Woodlands School and Sports College is a boys school situated in west Coventry in the West Midlands, England. The school was purpose-built in 1954 as one of the first comprehensive schools in the country, by the collaboration of two local educational establishments, Templars School and Coventry...

 between September 1980 and July 1985. During his time at the school, he also played football and cricket before opting for rugby union. Back learnt his trade at Barker's Butts RFC and went on to represent England at U18, U21 and 'A' level before making his full England debut against Scotland in 1994. He also played for Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...

.

Despite impressive performances, he was not selected for England regularly on the basis that he was too small – at only and 89 kg (196.2 lb; 14 st). Back's supporters claimed that his low body position helped his tackling, mobility and ability to snaffle the ball on the ground. In fitness tests, he was reputedly one of the fittest members of the England squad, and had an enormous workrate.

His most controversial moment came in Leicester's 1996 Pilkington Cup final defeat against Bath
Bath Rugby
Bath Rugby is an English professional rugby union club that is based in the city of Bath. They play in the Aviva Premiership league...

. As the final whistle was blown, Back pushed referee Steve Lander to the ground. Back maintained that he had mistaken Lander for Bath back-row (and future England head coach) Andy Robinson
Andy Robinson
Richard Andrew 'Andy' Robinson OBE is an English rugby union coach and retired player. He is currently the head coach of Scotland.Robinson played as an openside flanker for Bath, England and the British and Irish Lions...

. Back was given a six month ban from the game, but came back fitter and fresher than he had ever been. This led to a surprise call-up to the 1997 British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa, where he was a replacement in the decisive Second Test. He subsequently became an important part of Clive Woodward
Clive Woodward
Sir Clive Ronald Woodward OBE is an English former rugby union player and coach. He was coach of the team from 1997 to 2004, managing them to victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. He is currently the British Olympic Association's Director of Elite Performance.-Early life:Woodward was born in Ely...

's England team, forming the famous Hill, Back, Dallaglio back-row unit with Richard Hill
Richard Hill (flanker)
Richard Hill MBE is a former rugby union footballer who played flanker for Saracens and England.Often portrayed as the 'silent assassin' at both club and international level, his effective and abrasive style of forward play has made him legendary in rugby union circles...

 and Lawrence Dallaglio
Lawrence Dallaglio
Lorenzo Bruno Nero "Lawrence" Dallaglio, OBE is a retired English rugby union player and former captain of the English national team. He played as a flanker or number eight for London Wasps and never played for another club, having arrived at Sudbury as a teenager...

. He was also one of five Tigers players selected for the 2001 British and Irish Lions tour to Australia.

Back was a master of controlling the ball at the back of a rolling maul and in 1999 he was Leicester's top try scorer with 16 tries as Tigers often kicked penalties to touch for lineouts near to the opposition's try line, won the subsequent lineout and the pack drove Back over to score.

He scored in the 2001 Heineken Cup
Heineken Cup
The Heineken Cup is one of two annual rugby union competitions organised by European Rugby Cup involving leading club, regional and provincial teams from the six International Rugby Board countries in Europe whose national teams compete in the Six Nations Championship: England, France, Ireland,...

 final in which Leicester beat Stade Français by 34–30, and won the lineout which led to Austin Healey
Austin Healey
Austin Sean Healey is a former English rugby union player, who played as a utility back for Leicester Tigers, and has represented the England national rugby union team and the British Lions....

's break and Leon Lloyd
Leon Lloyd
Leon David Lloyd is a retired English rugby union footballer who played wing or outside centre for Leicester Tigers between 1997 and 2007, spending his final 2007/8 season at Gloucester....

's winning try.

In the 2002 Heineken Cup Final he once again aroused major controversy. Tigers were leading Munster
Munster Rugby
Munster Rugby is an Irish professional rugby union team based in Munster, that competes in the RaboDirect Pro12 and Heineken Cup.The team represents the Irish Rugby Football Union Munster Branch which is one of four primary branches of the IRFU, and is responsible for rugby union in the Irish...

 15–9 in the final minutes of the match, and Munster had a scrum
Scrum (rugby union)
In rugby union a scrum is a means of restarting play after a minor infringement. It involves up to eight players from each team, known as the pack or forward pack, binding together in three rows and interlocking with the free opposing teams forwards. At this point the ball is fed into the gap...

 well inside the Leicester 22. With the referee distracted on the other side of the scrum, Back illegally swatted the ball from Munster
Munster Rugby
Munster Rugby is an Irish professional rugby union team based in Munster, that competes in the RaboDirect Pro12 and Heineken Cup.The team represents the Irish Rugby Football Union Munster Branch which is one of four primary branches of the IRFU, and is responsible for rugby union in the Irish...

 scrum-half Peter Stringer
Peter Stringer
Peter Alexander Stringer is an Irish rugby union player who plays at scrum half for Munster and Ireland. He is one of the most recognisable players in world rugby as Stringer stands only 1.7m tall and weighs in at just over 70 kg .-Career:In February 2000, he made his debut for Ireland...

's hands before the put-in and Leicester won possession and cleared the ball. The press and Munster fans were up in arms, though Munster's players sportingly conceded that gamesmanship
Gamesmanship
Gamesmanship is the use of dubious methods to win a game. It has been described as "Pushing the rules to the limit without getting caught, using whatever dubious methods possible to achieve the desired end"...

 was an integral part of the game.

He captained England when Martin Johnson was injured. He took over the captaincy of Leicester for the 2003/4 season, but Johnson was reinstated as captain after the coaching coup that saw Dean Richards
Dean Richards (rugby player)
Dean Richards is a former England and British & Irish Lions rugby union player. He had a long playing career with Leicester Tigers, and played 48 times for England and six times for the British & Irish Lions.-Club career:...

 sacked as coach and replaced by John Wells
John Wells (rugby)
John Wells is a former captain and coach of the Leicester Tigers rugby union team and presently forwards coach for England.Wells was born in Driffield, Yorkshire...

, and Back given a role as a defence coach.

Back was one of England's outstanding players during the 2003 Rugby World Cup
2003 Rugby World Cup
The 2003 Rugby World Cup was the fifth Rugby World Cup and was won by England. Originally planned to be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, all games were shifted to Australia following a contractual dispute over ground signage rights between the New Zealand Rugby Football Union and Rugby World...

, starting six of the seven games in the tournament and scoring two tries along the way. The only fixture he missed was the pool game against Uruguay.

He retired after he was dropped from the England team during the 2004 Six Nations, citing that he wanted to spend more time with his family rather than fight for his place in the side. Known for his competitive nature, he had previously vowed never to retire and was 34 at the time of the World Cup win.

However, he made himself available for the 2005 British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand
2005 British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand
In 2005 the British and Irish Lions rugby union team toured New Zealand for the first time since 1993, playing 7 tour matches against first and second division clubs from the National Provincial Championship series, 1 tour match against the national New Zealand all Māori club, and 3 official test...

 and was selected in the squad, his third Lions tour. He won his fifth Lions cap in the first test but was then left out of the side for the remaining two tests. This was his last top-flight rugby match.

Coaching career

Back had a stint as Leicester's defensive coach and also the coach of academy and reserve team forwards. His first silverware as a coach was the Guinness A-League where Leicester's reserves won in a two legged final against Harlequins reserves.

On 27 June 2008, Back signed with Leeds Carnegie to become Head Coach alongside Andy Key who became Director of Rugby. He remained at Leeds until they were relegated back to the Championship in 2011.

On 4 July 2011, it was announced that Back would become head coach at Rugby Lions
Rugby Lions
Rugby Football Club, nicknamed the Lions, is a rugby union club based in Rugby, Warwickshire in England . Rugby currently compete in National League 3 Midlands...

 in National League 3 Midlands.

External links

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