Water boy Jordan Crane just happy to make splash

Jordan Crane, having gone from water boy to Premiership winner in the space of 12 months, is grateful for what he has rather than what he has missed out on.
No.8 Crane, who turns 27 tomorrow, battled back from the horrific knee injury that sidelined him for the entire 2011/12 campaign to play a prominent role in helping Leicester to their eighth Premiership title and his third since joining the club from Leeds in 2006. He said that last Saturday's 37-17 Grand Final win over arch-rivals Northampton was “the sweetest of the lot” and more than makes up for being overlooked for England's tour of Argentina.
He told The Rugby Paper: “It was disappointing to miss out on it because I thought my form was pretty good at the back end of the season, but I'll take winning the Premiership over going.
“Last year was a tough one. I spent a long time laid up on the settee wondering if I was ever going to play again.
“It took me a long time to get fit again and then to reclaim my place in the side. So it was pretty special to be back at Twickenham playing in a final and winning it.
“It was great to score the only try when we beat London Irish to become champions in 2009 and then get the man-of-the-match award against Saracens the following year.
“But to go through what I went through, and the fact it was against Saints, our biggest rivals, means this was probably the sweetest one of the lot.
“It is right up there with my best moments in rugby.”
This time last season, Crane was a “hydration monitor” for his team in the Grand Final defeat to Harlequins, his injury precluding any involvement as a player.
While not an experience he would necessarily wish to repeat, his knowledge of the role could be proving useful at this very moment, because hot on the heels of his own five-day bender in Marbella, Crane is currently on Richard Blaze's stag-do in Spain.
With Toby Flood and Tom Croft also getting married this really is the summer of love at the Tigers.
But once the partying is over Crane knows that plenty of hard graft lies ahead if the Tigers are going to defend their crown next season. He said: “It's definitely going to be difficult because league titles can be decided on such small margins.
“We're set for a bit of a disjointed start with the Lions contingent away, which means it'll be up to the rest of the guys to regroup and really drive everything forward.
“A lot of the guys have picked some invaluable experience over the last six to seven weeks, and if we can reproduce the sort of form we showed towards the back end of the season just gone then I don't see any reason why we can't challenge again.”
JON NEWCOMBE