Amidst a classic English rugby's most storied contests, this fixture involving Leicester and Bath was as much about an emotion during the interval as any on-field action during the pitch.
The legendary Martin Johnson headed a phalanx comprising Leicester former players to pay tribute to the great Lewis Moody, after he announced his diagnosis with motor neurone disease.
When Moody last pulled on the Tigers' shirt here, a decade and a half past, before moving to Bath for his final two seasons of a storied career, the home side were more or less still at their very best, whereas Bath found themselves in the middle of a long drought devoid of championship success. Times have changed since. The Tigers’ great rivals arrived as champions, the first time they have called themselves that since the 1990s.
An Passionate Welcome on Home Turf
The Tigers, riding a powerful emotional surge, served up an old-fashioned welcome, embracing the role of the unfancied team in their own stadium, the 18,000 Midlanders further emboldened by Moody’s confession during the break that regardless of his residence, Welford Road remains his rugby home.
In retrospect, Bath were always up against it. True to form, during a final, desperate attack deep in Bath territory, the Tigers managed to coax a crucial penalty out of the Bath defence.
The Decisive Moment
The replacement fly-half, on for the impressive James O'Connor, the seasoned Australian making his debut start for the club, darted blind, and the Bath prop caught him high, an infringement for which he saw yellow. From the final play, Searle slotted the penalty kick from a difficult angle to steal the win.
It felt like being transported back of Moody’s pomp. Certainly, the home team, who moved up the table in the mid-table bun fight, will be heartened that a familiar frontal assault can still yield results, regardless of the quality of the opponent.
Contrasting Game Plans
Bath were a different class with ball in hand. Therefore, Leicester, following a confusing opening period which saw them trail 17-7, adapted to starve them of possession. A deluge of penalties conceded by Bath put Bath on the back foot, their pack thoroughly outplayed in the scrums and lineouts throughout the game.
Leicester’s three tries were carbon copies of each other, all scored from close range; Bath's three tries were studies in poetry. Frost, Underhill, and Redpath scored the tries, before and after Ollie Cracknell’s try for Leicester. Subsequently, on the back of those penalties, Reffell and Smith forced their way over to score just before and just after the break.
The Nail-Biting Finish
Those scores gave Leicester a narrow advantage, which they held for most of the second half. It seemed only a matter of time before Bath won enough ball to score their fourth. In fact, their breakthrough came with a rare penalty at the scrum, their South Africans by then on. The fly-half, after missing two earlier kicks, successfully converted the penalty with a little less than 10 minutes to play.
This merely galvanized Leicester to launch one final, powerful assault, set up by the lively Ollie Hassell-Collins on the left wing. Having won the penalty that earned Bath the lead in a situation he relishes, the unfortunate prop conceded where he is not. There could be only one result.
