Amidst a classic English rugby's most storied rivalries, this match between the Tigers and Bath was heavily influenced by an emotion during half-time as any rugby on play.
Martin Johnson headed a contingent comprising Leicester old boys to pay tribute to the great Lewis Moody, who has announced that he has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
The last time Moody last pulled on the Tigers' jersey at Welford Road, 15 years ago, before moving to their rivals Bath for the last two years of a storied career, the home side were more or less close to their very best, while their opponents found themselves in the middle of a long drought devoid of championship success. The landscape has shifted dramatically since then. Bath came into the match as title holders, marking the first occasion they've held that status since the 1990s.
A Truly Emotional Reception on Home Turf
The Tigers, on a wave of emotion, offered them a classic, robust reception, embracing the role of the unfancied team in their own stadium, the large home crowd greatly inspired by Moody’s confession at half-time that, no matter where he may live, this famous ground will always be his rugby home.
Looking back, the visiting side were always up against it. True to form, during a final, desperate attack on the Bath line, Leicester won one last penalty out of the Bath defence.
A Dramatic Climax
The replacement fly-half, on for the excellent James O'Connor, the seasoned Australian making his debut start for Leicester, took a quick tap, before the Bath prop caught him high, for which offence he received a yellow card. From the final play, Searle landed the penalty on an angle to steal the win.
We might as well have been back in the days to Lewis Moody's prime. Without a doubt, Leicester, who moved up the table in the mid-table bun fight, can take great encouragement that their traditional, direct approach remains effective, no matter the pedigree they face.
Contrasting Styles
The visitors were a different class when in possession. So Leicester, after a bewildering first half-hour which saw them trail 17-7, adapted to starve them of possession. A deluge of penalties against Bath put Bath on the back foot, their forwards comprehensively bested 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 were the finishers, before and after Ollie Cracknell’s try for Tigers. Then, capitalizing on the penalty count, Reffell and Smith powered over to score just before and just after the break.
The Tense Conclusion
Those scores gave Leicester the lead, an advantage they maintained for the majority of the second period. It seemed only a matter of time before Bath won enough ball to grab a fourth try. Actually, their scoring opportunity came with a rare penalty at the scrum, with their South African reinforcements now on the field. The fly-half, having missed two of his three earlier attempts, successfully converted the penalty with a little less than 10 minutes to play.
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 put Bath ahead where he is most comfortable, poor Du Toit conceded where he is not. The outcome was then a foregone conclusion.
