Amidst a classic rugby union's greatest contests, this match involving Leicester and the visitors proved to be heavily influenced by the emotion at half-time as the rugby on play.
The legendary Martin Johnson headed a contingent comprising Leicester former players to pay tribute to Lewis Moody, after he announced his diagnosis with motor neurone disease.
When Moody wore a Leicester shirt at Welford Road, a decade and a half past, prior to joining Bath for the last two years of a storied career, Leicester were more or less close to their very best, while Bath found themselves enduring a lengthy period without the title. The landscape has shifted dramatically since then. Bath arrived as champions, the first time they've held that status in over two decades.
An Emotional Welcome at Welford Road
Leicester, on a wave of emotion, offered them an old-fashioned welcome, relishing their status as the unfancied team on their own pitch, the 18,000 Midlanders greatly inspired by Moody’s confession during the break that regardless of his residence, this famous ground remains the home of his rugby heart.
Looking back, the visiting side were always up against it. Sure enough, during a final, desperate attack on the Bath line, Leicester won a crucial penalty out of the Bath defence.
The Climax
The replacement fly-half, on for the excellent James O’Connor, the experienced Wallaby making his first start for the club, darted blind, before Thomas du Toit made a high tackle, for which offence he received a yellow card. From the final play, Searle landed the penalty from a difficult angle to steal the win.
We might as well have been transported back to Lewis Moody's prime. Without a doubt, Leicester, who climb a little higher in the mid-table bun fight, can take great encouragement that their traditional, direct approach can still yield results, no matter the pedigree they face.
A Tale of Two Game Plans
Bath were a different class with ball in hand. Therefore, Leicester, after a bewildering first half-hour 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 at the set piece throughout the game.
The Tigers' three touchdowns were remarkably similar, all scored from close range; Bath's three tries were studies in poetry. Dan Frost, Sam Underhill and Cameron Redpath scored the tries, either side of Ollie Cracknell’s try for Tigers. Subsequently, capitalizing on the penalty count, Reffell and Smith powered over for tries just before and just after the break.
The Tense Conclusion
Those scores gave Leicester a narrow advantage, an advantage they maintained for the majority of the second period. It appeared inevitable before Bath secured sufficient possession to grab a fourth try. In fact, their breakthrough arrived via an infrequent penalty in the scrum, their South Africans by then on. The fly-half, after missing two earlier kicks, successfully converted the penalty inside the final ten minutes.
This merely galvanized Leicester for one last, brutish assault, initiated by the lively Ollie Hassell-Collins down the left. Having won the penalty that earned Bath the lead in a situation he relishes, the unfortunate prop conceded where he is not. The outcome was then a foregone conclusion.
