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

In this memorable and closely-fought battle of top against bottom, it was mostly unclear which Premiership team was which. Bath eventually fell to defeat, only the Tigers’ second success in 12 Premiership visits to the home of their great rivals. But after the threat of another Recreation Ground rout for the hosts had hung in the air, Bath hassled and disrupted their opponents and came close to a famous win. In the end, Leicester’s power and precision was decisive.

After five minutes of early sparring, Leicester’s first visit to their opponents’ 22 showed why they are top, as they sliced through thanks to a fine floating pass from Freddie Burns to Dan Kelly. Nemani Nadolo’s heavy-duty carry sucked in several defenders, and the No 8 Jasper Wiese capitalised by forcing his way over.

Bath were struggling to contain Leicester’s powerful carries but when the wind held up a Leicester kick from hand, a beautifully judged grubber kick by Ben Spencer sent Will Muir over. Orlando Bailey’s conversion was diverted away by the blustery wind.

A classy piece of work by Dan Kelly soon saw the Tigers breeze through Bath again: Guy Porter was released and offloaded to Richard Wigglesworth who strolled under the posts to make it 14-5. The ease of the score did not bode well for the hosts 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 soon afterwards and Bailey converted the three-pointer. Some fine work at the breakdown from Max Ojomoh brought another penalty for the hosts. Bath twice kicked for the corner and were rewarded when another brilliant grubber, this time by Jonathan Joseph, was smartly finished by Ojomoh.