Bath v Leicester Tigers: Five takeaways as ‘records keep tumbling’ for hat-trick hero Thomas du Toit and why we’re in for ‘special’ PREM semi-finals
Bath prop Thomas du Toit scored a hat-trick against Leicester Tigers.
Following a 24-22 win for Bath over Leicester Tigers at the Recreation Ground on Saturday, here’s our five takeaways from the PREM Rugby clash.
The records keep tumbling for Thomas du Toit
Bath closed out the regular season with a narrow win over Leicester Tigers at the Recreation Ground, edging a breathless contest after the Tigers had bossed the opening half.
The afternoon belonged to Thomas du Toit, whose hat-trick from tighthead carried him into the record books, and the result handed Bath the home semi-final they had chased all year. Leicester emptied the tank, came up two points short, and still marched into the play-offs and a derby versus Northampton to set the pulse racing.
The hat-trick was the headline, three tries from a man who wears three on his back, but the bigger story sits behind it. Du Toit moves to 21 for his career, a record for a prop in this league and a mark that may stand for a generation.
Tightheads are supposed to anchor scrums and leave the scoring to others, and yet this one has spent years quietly ignoring the memo. He is the finest number three the Prem has seen, a scrummaging rock who carries like a back-rower and finishes like a wing, and Bath have leaned on him through every recent triumph.
He is, by common consent, one of the nicest men in the game too, the sort every opponent shakes hands with and means it. He is also leaving at the end of the campaign, which hangs over the run-in, because how on earth do Bath ever replace a legend? They do not, of course. They simply hope the hole he eventually leaves is not quite the size of nearby Wookey Hole.
The consolation, for now, is that he is not gone yet. There is a home semi-final to come and, should Bath see off Exeter, a final beyond it, so the great man may have two more days in blue, black and white before the farewells begin. Make them count, because we will not see his like again.
Bath were second best for half an hour, then turned the screw
For 30-odd minutes this belonged to Leicester. The Tigers had the ball, well over 60 per cent of it in the first half, and they used it to drag Bath around the Rec and ask hard questions of a champion side that looked oddly flat. Then the interval came and everything shifted.
Bath emerged a different animal, planting themselves in Leicester territory and refusing to budge, with close to two-thirds of the second half played in the visitors’ half. They kicked smartly to the corners, turned the screw at the maul and forced Leicester to make tackle after tackle, both packs ending the day with more than 150 of them.
The engine for all of it was the back-row. Ted Hill, above all, carried into contact with such relentless appetite that Bath were soon firing off the front foot on every phase. Bath won it the way they win most things, by grinding the opposition into the dirt and being there at the death. It would have pleased the late Roger Spurrell, a man who departed his friends and Rec family this week, and this was a match forged with the steel that personified his era.
Bath have made a habit of taking the half that counts every time they find themselves under pressure and Johann van Graan will be surely echoing his mantra of never too high, never too low, a catchphrase that summed this game up to perfection.
The home semi-final was the whole point
Strip away the entertainment and the prize that mattered was the one on the table. The win nailed Bath to second spot and the home semi-final that comes with it, and we already know Exeter must make the trek down to the Rec to face them.
That is no small thing; Bath have turned their ground into one of the hardest places to win in the country. Fortress Rec and hosting a knockout tie, with all the comfort that brings, is the kind of edge that decides titles.
The treble winners of last season have timed this beautifully, reaching the play-offs with a settled side, points in the bank and home advantage in hand. Exeter will arrive full of belief after their own white-knuckle afternoon against Saracens, and Rob Baxter’s rebuilt side carry the kind of momentum that makes them awkward visitors, so Bath will know complacency is the one thing that could trip them up.
For a side chasing back-to-back crowns, though, there was precious little here that Van Graan would change.
Leicester lost the battle but kept the prize they wanted
There is plenty for the Tigers to be proud of. They scored at will, took the champions to the wire and tackled themselves to a standstill, more than 150 hits of their own in a furious defensive shift, and on another day they win this.
Their attack had real bite and their set-piece stood toe to toe with a monstrous Bath eight. The three-point margin will sting, and a top-two finish with a home semi has slipped through their fingers.
Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust.
The reward, though, is a thing of beauty. Leicester finish fourth and head for Franklin’s Gardens, which means an East Midlands derby, Northampton against the Tigers, with a place in the final at stake.
Few ties in English club rugby carry more history, more bile or more box-office than that one. They will not care a jot about losing at the Rec once they get a sniff of it. Beaten this Saturday, perhaps, but Leicester have walked straight into the fixture they would have hand-picked.
The PREM could not have scripted these semi-finals
Spare a thought for whoever runs the league’s marketing department, because their job just got a great deal easier.
The play-offs have thrown up two derbies, and the whole competition is the richer for it. Bath host Exeter in a West Country grudge match at the Rec, while Northampton welcome Leicester for the East Midlands derby at Franklin’s Gardens.
Two of the fiercest rivalries the English game has to offer, two cauldrons that will be sold out and snarling, and four sides who would all back themselves to reach the final. You could not design a better last four. After a closing round that served up drama from the West Country to the Midlands, the league has handed itself a semi-final weekend that sells itself.
Bath remain the team to beat and look frighteningly well armed, but if these ties are anything like the rugby dished up on the final day, we are in for something special.
READ MORE: Jeremy Guscott ‘at a loss’ over England snub and compares Springbok to Martin Johnson
