Leicester’s Freddie Burns ensures Tigers survive scare from battling Bath

In this memorable battle of top against bottom, it was mostly unclear which Premiership team was which. Bath were eventually defeated in the Tigers’ second success in 12 league visits to the home of their great rivals.

But after the threat of another rout for the hosts had hung in the air, Bath hassled and disrupted their opponents and came close to a famous win. Leicester’s power and precision was decisive, though, as they stretched their lead to 11 points at the top of the table.

“That’s one that got away,” said the Bath head coach, Neal Hatley. “They’re a good side, they’re well drilled, they’re well coached. But that feels like we’ve missed a real opportunity.”

Leicester’s first visit to their opponents’ 22 demonstrated why they are top: they sliced through thanks to a fine floating pass from Freddie Burns to Dan Kelly. After Nemani Nadolo’s heavy-duty carry, the No 8 Jasper Wiese forced his way over and Burns converted. Bath were struggling to contain Leicester’s carriers but when the wind held up a Leicester kick, a beautiful grubber by Ben Spencer sent Will Muir over.

A classy piece of work by Kelly soon had the Tigers breezing through again: Guy Porter was released and offloaded to Richard Wigglesworth, who strolled under the posts. The ease of the score did not bode well for the home side and when Muir was shown a yellow card for taking out Bryce Hegarty, things looked to be heading south even faster.

Hegarty, however, was penalised on the Leicester 22 and Orlando Bailey converted the penalty. Some excellent work at the breakdown from Max Ojomoh brought another penalty. Bath twice kicked for the corner and were rewarded when a grubber by Jonathan Joseph was smartly finished by Ojomoh. Bath believed.

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