DIAMONDS can turn into millstones. Leicester’s devastatingly brilliant performance in the 2001 Heineken Cup final in Paris, when Austin Healey and Leon Lloyd conjured with fast balls against Stade Français, still has a resonance – if only these days as a stylistic contrast, a reminder of how Leicester once could play.

The great Midlands giants have won only one major title in the seven years since that blazing Parisian afternoon, and apart from one fast-moving performance in the Anglo-Welsh final against the Ospreys two years ago, it is difficult to remember many occasions when the pace of their game rose above a sticky plod.

They still deserve the utmost respect, still win most of their games, and in the era of Neil Back and the driving maul (an era ended by the experimental laws) they could still be magnificently passionate, effective and difficult to play against. But so often these days their victories appear to be down to will and sweat. Frequently, and even in victory, their games tend to peter out into attrition, rather than speed to a heady conclusion.

The flow has gone. Leicester have been playing for too long without a rhythm and a pace, and unless they can rediscover themselves they are not going to win trophies, and they may even be in danger today against the Ospreys in their opening match of the Heineken Cup. And yet this team has, in Geordan Murphy, Danny Hipkiss, Tom Varndell and Harry Ellis, four of the best attacking talents in England.

So what has happened? How can they throw off the chains? Many believe Leicester have been strangling themselves at the breakdown. When the opposition carry the ball into the breakdown area, Leicester are all over them, trying to slow the ball down by sealing it off, often with players off their feet. It is not a criticism. Every other team in the game would love to do it as well as Leicester.

But it often seems this stodgy, overcautious style prevails even when Leicester have the ball. They refuse to speculate, to go for quick ball. They pile in and it often seems that their scrum-half has to laboriously dig it out from beneath bodies.

With ball so slow, the only option is to kick it, or to play one-out rugby, merely making one pass to a charging warrior such as Martin Corry or Jordan Crane. Where does the gas come from, the space, the momentum? It is time for them to speculate at the breakdown.

If the first few players on the scene after a tackle can take out the nearest opposition and stay on their feet, leaving the ball behind and clearing it for the scrum-half, and if it is done quickly and accurately, then suddenly the ball is quick and dynamic.

Remember, too, that Leicester have in Tom Croft, above, one of the finest and fastest forwards in the game. If they can move the quick ball wide with two or three swift passes, and launch the flanker into space and not simply at a phalanx of defenders, suddenly the move is being conducted at pace, and with a quick transfer there must be space for the likes of Varndell and Co.

With the driving maul now neutralised as a weapon and new strictures being applied by English referees at the breakdown to keep players on their feet, it is both a technical necessity and a tactical option to change. It is time to stir the ghost of Healey and cast off the choking chains.