Amidst a classic English rugby's greatest contests, the fixture between Leicester and Bath proved to be heavily influenced by the emotion at half-time as the rugby on play.
The legendary Martin Johnson led a contingent comprising Tigers former players to pay tribute to Lewis Moody, after he revealed his diagnosis with motor neurone disease.
When Moody last pulled on a Leicester jersey here, a decade and a half past, prior to joining Bath for the last two years of a storied career, Leicester were more or less still at the peak of their powers, whereas Bath were situated enduring a lengthy period devoid of championship success. The landscape has shifted dramatically since then. The Tigers’ great rivals arrived as champions, marking the first occasion they've held that status since the 1990s.
An Emotional Welcome at Welford Road
The Tigers, riding a powerful emotional surge, offered them a classic, robust reception, embracing the role of the unfancied team on their own pitch, the large home crowd further emboldened by Moody's heartfelt admission at half-time that regardless of his residence, Welford Road remains his rugby home.
Looking back, Bath did not stand a chance. True to form, in a last-minute assault on the Bath line, Leicester won one last penalty out of the Bath defence.
A Dramatic Climax
The replacement fly-half, who replaced the excellent James O’Connor, the experienced Wallaby making his first start for the club, took a quick tap, and the Bath prop caught him high, an infringement for which he received a yellow card. With the last kick, Searle slotted the penalty kick on an angle to snatch a dramatic victory.
We might as well have been transported back to Lewis Moody's prime. Without a doubt, the home team, who moved up the table in the mid-table bun fight, can take great encouragement that a familiar frontal assault can still yield results, regardless of the quality of the opponent.
A Tale of Two Game Plans
Bath were a different class with ball in hand. So Leicester, after a bewildering first half-hour in which they fell 17-7 behind, 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.
The Tigers' three touchdowns were remarkably similar, neither scored from more than a yard; Bath's three tries were studies in poetry. Dan Frost, Sam Underhill and Cameron Redpath scored the tries, either side of Cracknell's score for Leicester. Subsequently, capitalizing on the penalty count, Reffell and Smith forced their way over for tries either side of half-time.
The Tense Finish
Those scores gave Leicester a narrow advantage, an advantage they maintained 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 scoring opportunity came with a rare penalty in the scrum, with their South African reinforcements now on the field. Finn Russell, after missing two earlier kicks, successfully converted the penalty inside the final ten minutes.
This merely galvanized Leicester to launch one final, powerful assault, initiated by the lively Ollie Hassell-Collins on the left wing. Having won the penalty that earned Bath the lead where he is most comfortable, the unfortunate prop conceded where he is not. The outcome was then a foregone conclusion.
