Tiger’s fight back to draw with Bath

Bath 06-05
By Tigerchick
October 11 2004

It was cold and windy and the sky looked ominously gloomy at 14:45 on Saturday 9th October 2004. Ever the optimist, I’d assumed that the rains were heading away from Leicester and Tigers would continue their current winning streak with a convincing victory over the “old enemy”.

I only managed to get one of those assumptions right and Tigers fought tooth and nail (and threw in a few other bits of their battered bodies) to secure two points and top of the premiership table (partly thanks to the Exiles surprise victory over the Sharks on Friday night), by drawing with Bath in a bloody battle of catch-up rugby.
Bath made an impact early on with a Michael Lipman try coming from a brilliant break at the line out by Robbie Fleck, whose pass looked suspiciously forwards on the television replay. Olly Barkley, ever the reliable boot, converted to make it Tigers 0, Bath 7 after just 6 minutes. Tigers were playing catch up from there onwards.
Olly Barkley successfully converted a penalty a few minutes later, leaving the Tigers faithful seriously concerned with the way things were proceeding. Having witnessed Tigers running Saints out of town just two weeks before, it was as though an entirely different team had turned out in green, red and white. Ross Broadfoot missed an opportunity to open Tigers score with a missed penalty, which was replicated by Barkley 15 minutes later. Barkley slotted a second penalty through the uprights in the dying seconds of the first half. Bath lead by 13 points to nil at the break.
	Tigers returned from the break looking raring to go and after Broadfoot was taken off for a blood-bin, Geordan Murphy opened Tigers account with a penalty and a try in the first 15 minutes. Tigers were at last, in the running. 8-13 with everything to play for and 25 minutes in which to do it!
Bath's only points in the second half came from a beautiful Barkley drop-goal, which left Leicester needing two scores to stay in the running Broadfoot gave the fans hope of 1 point in the last minutes of proper time with a successful penalty conversion.
Not believing for a second that we were going to lose the game the crowd were louder than I've heard in a long time, really getting behind the lads in those last 10 minutes or so. We were finally rewarded with a try by the brilliant Harry Ellis thanks to a last ditch effort by Martin Corry out of a five-metre scrum.
How Harry made it to the line whilst being faced with a wall of white Bath shirts I'll never know. The ref prolonged the crowd's suffering by consulting the television match official before awarding the point's equaliser. Looking at the replay, it must have been a very difficult decision to make. Broadfoot sadly failed to kick the match-winning conversion. Final score, Tigers 16 Bath 16. It could all have been so different considering the position we were in at half time. Thankfully an excellent Tigers defence kept Bath away from the try line and a win they were fighting so zealously to achieve. Referee Chris White struggled to sort out the mess that was the scrummaging throughout, with the two highly experienced front rows determined to disrupt the others scrum, by any means necessary. It seemed to me that every scrum had to be set and reset as the ref battled with the six players in the front standing up (in the scrum) and pulling the scrum down at every opportunity, not to mention scrum halves delaying the put in. It's a dirty old game, the sport we call rugby. The dirty play wasn't limited to the scrum with both teams spotted (not by the ref I might add) stamping and punching on numerous occasions. Leicester players, not known for their squeaky-clean play, were surprisingly restrained despite the provocation. I wouldn't be surprised if the citing committee doesn't have anything to say in the week to come and I don't just mean in terms of the Bath players either. This has to have been one of the most exciting, thrilling and gripping matches I've witnessed in a long time. We may have beaten Saints and Falcons in the past two weekends, but this game was so much more than the result. We had to fight hard and dirty to secure those two little points, making the game all the more thrilling. If Chris White hadn't had such an awful day, it could have been so much more for both sets of fans. Tigerchick's Tigers man of the match has to be Harry Ellis, who coped exceptionally well with the mess that was the scrum as well as terrific play making and providing us with the all-important points equalising try. As the result was a draw, I will also choose a Bath man of the match. This has to be Mike Tindall, who kept popping up everywhere and whose work-rate was tireless. He really did have a stonking game and really looks to have regained his pre-World Cup form. I'm sure the England camp will have been scrutinising his game in lieu of the upcoming autumn internationals.