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Against the backdrop of one of English rugby's greatest rivalries, this fixture involving the Tigers and the visitors proved to be heavily influenced by the emotion at the interval as any on-field action during play.

Martin Johnson led a phalanx of Tigers former players to pay tribute to the great Lewis Moody, who has revealed that he has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

When Moody wore the Tigers' shirt here, a decade and a half past, before moving to their rivals Bath for his final two seasons of a storied career, Leicester remained still at their very best, whereas 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 have called themselves that since the 1990s.

An Passionate Welcome at Welford Road

Leicester, riding a powerful emotional surge, served up a classic, robust reception, embracing the role of underdogs in their own stadium, the large home crowd greatly inspired by Moody’s confession at half-time that regardless of his residence, this famous ground will always be his rugby home.

Looking back, the visiting side did not stand a chance. Sure enough, in a last-minute assault on the Bath line, the Tigers won a crucial penalty out of the Bath defence.

A Dramatic Climax

The replacement fly-half, who replaced the impressive James O'Connor, the seasoned Australian making his first start for Leicester, darted blind, before Thomas du Toit caught him high, an infringement for which he received a yellow card. With the last kick, Searle landed the penalty from a difficult angle to steal the win.

It felt like being transported back of Moody’s pomp. Certainly, the home team, who moved up the table in the mid-table bun fight, can take great encouragement that their traditional, direct approach remains effective, regardless of the quality they face.

Contrasting Game Plans

The visitors were sublime when in possession. So Leicester, following a confusing opening period which saw them trail 17-7, adapted to starve them of possession. A deluge of penalties conceded by the away side put Bath on the back foot, their forwards thoroughly outplayed in the scrums and lineouts throughout the game.

The Tigers' three touchdowns were remarkably similar, all scored from close range; Bath's three tries were studies in poetry. Frost, Underhill, and Redpath scored the tries, before and after Cracknell's score for Tigers. Subsequently, capitalizing on the penalty count, Tommy Reffell and Nicky Smith forced their way over for tries either side of half-time.

The Nail-Biting Finish

Those scores gave Leicester a narrow advantage, an advantage they maintained for the majority of the second period. It seemed only a matter of time before Bath won enough ball to score their fourth. In fact, their scoring opportunity arrived via an infrequent penalty in the scrum, with their South African reinforcements now on the field. Finn Russell, after missing two earlier kicks, successfully converted the penalty with a little less than 10 minutes to play.

That only inspired Leicester for one last, brutish assault, set up by the lively Ollie Hassell-Collins down the left. After earning the penalty that earned Bath the lead where he is most comfortable, the unfortunate prop gave away a penalty in a vulnerable position. The outcome was then a foregone conclusion.