Against the backdrop of one of English rugby's greatest contests, this fixture between the Tigers and the visitors was as much about an emotion at half-time as any on-field action on play.
Martin Johnson led a contingent of Leicester former players in honour of the great Lewis Moody, after he announced his diagnosis with motor neurone disease.
The last time Moody last pulled on a Leicester shirt here, a decade and a half past, prior to joining Bath for the last two years in a distinguished playing career, Leicester remained still at their very best, while Bath found themselves enduring a long drought without the title. The landscape has shifted dramatically since then. Bath came into the match as title holders, the first time they have called themselves that in over two decades.
A Truly Passionate Reception on Home Turf
Leicester, on a wave of emotion, offered them an old-fashioned welcome, relishing their status as underdogs on their own pitch, the large home crowd greatly inspired by Moody’s confession at half-time that regardless of his residence, this famous ground will always be his rugby home.
Looking back, Bath were always up against it. Sure enough, in a last-minute assault on the Bath line, the Tigers won one last penalty from the tiring Bath defenders.
A Dramatic Decisive Moment
The replacement fly-half, on for the excellent James O’Connor, the experienced Wallaby making his first start for the club, darted blind, and Thomas du Toit made a high tackle, for which offence he received a yellow card. From the final play, Searle slotted the penalty kick from a difficult angle to steal the win.
We might as well have been back in the days to Lewis Moody's prime. Without a doubt, the home team, who climb a little higher in the mid-table bun fight, will be heartened that their traditional, direct approach can still yield results, no matter the pedigree they face.
Contrasting Styles
The visitors were a different class when in possession. Therefore, Leicester, after a bewildering first half-hour which saw them trail 17-7, adapted to starve them of possession. A deluge of penalties against the away side kept Bath under constant pressure, their forwards thoroughly outplayed in the scrums and lineouts for most of the match.
Leicester’s three tries were carbon copies of each other, all scored from close range; Bath's three tries were works of art. Frost, Underhill, and Redpath scored the tries, before and after Ollie Cracknell’s try for Tigers. Subsequently, capitalizing on the penalty count, Tommy Reffell and Nicky Smith powered over for tries just before and just after the break.
A Nail-Biting Conclusion
That earned Tigers the lead, which they held for most of the second half. It seemed only a matter of time before Bath won enough ball to grab a fourth try. In fact, their breakthrough arrived via an infrequent penalty in the scrum, their South Africans by then on. Finn Russell, having missed two of his three earlier attempts, landed the kick inside the final ten minutes.
That only inspired Leicester to launch one final, powerful assault, set up by the energetic Hassell-Collins down the left. Having won the penalty that earned Bath the lead in a situation he relishes, the unfortunate prop gave away a penalty in a vulnerable position. There could be only one result.
