Amidst one of rugby union's greatest contests, the match between Leicester versus the visitors was heavily influenced by the emotion at the interval as the rugby during the pitch.
The legendary Martin Johnson headed a contingent comprising Tigers old boys in honour of the great Lewis Moody, who has revealed that he has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
When Moody wore the Tigers' shirt at Welford Road, a decade and a half past, before moving to their rivals Bath for the last two years in a distinguished playing career, Leicester remained still at their very best, whereas their opponents found themselves in the middle of a lengthy period devoid of championship success. The landscape has shifted dramatically since then. Bath arrived as champions, the first time they've held that status since the 1990s.
An Emotional Reception on Home Turf
Leicester, riding a powerful emotional surge, offered them a classic, robust reception, relishing their status as the unfancied team on their own pitch, the large home crowd greatly inspired by Moody’s confession at half-time that regardless of his residence, Welford Road remains the home of his rugby heart.
Looking back, Bath were always up against it. True to form, during a final, desperate attack on the Bath line, Leicester managed to coax a crucial penalty out of the Bath defence.
The Climax
Billy Searle, who replaced the excellent James O'Connor, the seasoned Australian making his first start for Leicester, darted blind, and the Bath prop made a high tackle, an infringement for which he saw yellow. With the last kick, 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, the home team, who climb a little higher 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
The visitors were a different class when in possession. Therefore, 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 forwards thoroughly outplayed in the scrums and lineouts for most of the match.
The Tigers' three touchdowns 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 Leicester. Then, on the back of those penalties, Tommy Reffell and Nicky Smith powered over to score just before and just after the break.
A Nail-Biting Finish
Those scores gave Leicester a narrow advantage, an advantage they maintained for most of the second half. It appeared inevitable before Bath secured sufficient possession to grab a fourth try. Actually, their scoring opportunity came with a rare 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 to launch one final, powerful assault, set up by the lively Ollie Hassell-Collins down the left. After earning the penalty that earned Bath the lead in a situation he relishes, poor Du Toit conceded where he is not. The outcome was then a foregone conclusion.
