“Quite rightly I got a six-month ban,” Neil Back freely admits while discussing an incident which could have derailed his rugby career before its greatest moments with Leicester Tigers and England.

In the final minutes of the 1996 Pilkington Cup final at Twickenham, between Bath and Leicester, the referee Steve Lander ran under the posts, arm raised, awarding a penalty try to Bath following persistent infringements by a desperate Leicester defence backed up near their own try-line. Jon Callard’s resulting conversion for a 16-15 win meant Bath were cup champions for a 10th time. It was the spiciest of finishes and as Back and Leicester seethed, the flanker broke one of rugby’s golden rules, pushing out at referee Lander as he left the field.

In the immediate aftermath Back claimed he had mistaken Lander for Bath’s Andy Robinson and had given the referee an “accidental push”. Lander seemed to offer a similar assessment, claiming he had “accidentally collided” with Back before adding: “I have no problem and there will be no further action on my part.” Except the matter was not closed.

The Rugby Football Union – no doubt conscious that, accidental or not, they could not have a referee being pushed over by a player – called for Back to attend a disciplinary hearing.

Reflecting on the incident now, Back recalls how that outburst was the culmination of years of pent-up frustration.

The wait for a first England cap after playing for the under-21s took four years and sent Back on a personal mission to Loughborough University, working with Rex Hazeldine to essentially train like a professional before the age of professionalism by working with a sport psychologist and overhauling his strength and conditioning, rehab and nutrition programmes. It worked, with Back making his England debut in 1994. But he was dropped and then recalled for the 1995 Rugby World Cup only to pick up an injury in the pool stages and miss the knockout games. Then came the cup final and a refereeing decision which Back and Leicester perceived as a huge injustice, leaving their dressing room “devastated” as their captain Dean Richards put it.

‘If Cockers hadn’t been on the floor he wouldn’t have fallen over’

Back explains: “As he was walking off the pitch, I gave him a slight shove to his shoulders. Richard Cockerill was on the floor behind him and I knew Cockerill was there. The referee sort of invaded my space, I pushed him away and he fell over.

“I went to the hearing. If Cockers hadn’t been on the floor he wouldn’t have fallen over. I think it was the frustration of those previous six years, fighting to get into the England team. I was only kept out of those knockout [World Cup] games because I might have got fit for the final. It was the end of the year, we had outplayed [Bath] that day and he gave a ridiculous decision. Looking back on it now I still can’t think how he gave a penalty try. Anyway, we lost the game. It’s the only time I’ve had an issue with an official. But from then I learnt how to communicate and change their mind on decisions, because of the relationships.”

Back was left facing six months without any rugby, even though the RFU stated that the disciplinary panel believed he was telling the truth when he said he had mistaken Lander for Robinson and the panel “at no time doubted his honesty and integrity”. He could not even train with Leicester, and so the following six months became a period of regeneration, on and off the field.

He proposed to his wife, Ali, “who I’ve now been married to for 26 years”, and the couple bought their first house together within the first month of Back’s suspension. And the rest? “I wouldn’t say this is how you go about doing it but the next five months I trained twice a day, six days a week, and then I never looked back,” Back explains, while noting that he coached at a number of schools during that time.

“It took me to that next level. I became the fittest I’ve ever been in my life. It helped me think about relationships with officials in the future. I wouldn’t advocate for it and getting a six-month ban, but I could have easily gone: ‘That’s it, I’m out for six months.’ But I thought no, I’m going to go again and use that opportunity. As a player you do pre-season and then through the season it’s about maintaining that fitness. I lived like an absolute athlete from then for the rest of my career.”

Back and Leicester responded by winning the following year’s Pilkington Cup and finished runners-up in Europe, before Back featured in the second and third Tests of the British and Irish Lions’ victorious 1997 tour of South Africa. He was named RFU player of the year and Premiership players’ player of the year for the 1997-98 season.

He was at the heart of Leicester’s four straight league titles between 1999 and 2002 and back-to-back European Cups in 2001 and 2002 – including the ‘Hand of Back’ against Munster in the latter victory, when two minutes from time, Back flicked the ball out of Peter Stringer’s hands to steal possession – before England’s rather successful year in 2003.

The group’s subsequent struggles after their moment of World Cup glory have been brought to light recently following the release of TNT Sports’ Unbreakable documentary. Discussing how the team’s 20th anniversary dinner brought them back together, sparking the launch of the Champions 2003 charity to help rugby players after their careers, Back reveals that he had not seen Julian White for over a decade despite them living just eight miles apart.

Another conversation with the father of an England player about that player’s future after rugby, with nothing lined up, had underlined the need to put structures in place to prevent current and future players from facing the same issues as the 2003 squad.

“That has to change,” Back says. “Whether you’re 18 or 35, it could be tomorrow [that you have to retire].

“Use the opportunity now. Get education, work placements, mental health help if you need it. We’re doing this to help the current crop.”

And while Back is unquestionably contrite about what happened with Lander, talking at an event to raise funds for the Champions 2003 charity, it is clear that enforced spell out of the sport proved to be the making of him.