Leicester Tigers v Bath: Winners and losers as James O’Connor ‘oozes class’ while England hopeful drops latest ‘reminder’ of Test quality
Ollie Hassell-Collins (left) and James O'Connor (right) were among the key winners in Leicester's victory over Bath
Following Leicester Tigers’ 22-20 win over Bath at Mattioli Woods Welford Road, here are our winners and losers from the round four PREM Rugby clash.
Winners
Leicester Tigers scrum
Wow, what a performance from the Leicester scrum. Nicky Smith, Jamie Blamire and Joe Heyes as a unit just dominated their Blue, Black and White counterparts in a ferocious display.
Smith’s ability to burrow under British and Irish Lions tourist Will Stuart set the tone early on, notably winning a penalty and a free-kick in the first two scrums of the day, and the rest followed suit to win their own individual battles too.
That helped shift the momentum of the game after Bath’s ominous start, scoring after just two minutes, and brought Leicester right back into the mix.
James O’Connor
Things just seemed to happen around him whenever he touched the ball on Saturday, and that told in the end. He just oozed class around the place.
His intent to play wide allowed the likes of Adam Radwan and Ollie Hassell-Collins to thrive, but also added a level of control to proceedings too by changing the tempo when it called for it.
Leicester’s fly-half contingent have all impressed this season, but O’Connor showed exactly why so many fans were excited to see him back in the PREM.
Ollie Hassell-Collins
A lot of the focus pre-game was on the battle between Radwan and Henry Arundell, but Hassell-Collins stole the show with the latest reminder of his Test credentials. He was a real threat from the get-go, managing to consistently find himself in space and create chances from pretty much nowhere, while also getting stuck into the aerial contest too.
Around his usual qualities, he also showed serious rugby intelligence with his kicking game, which again just piled pressure on the Bath defence.
England are spoiled for choice on the wing right now, but this was a very timely display from the Test hopeful.
Hanro Liebenburg
This is going to be a weird bit of praise, but I can’t really say anything other than he is just very, very good at rugby.
Be it through an audacious catch-and-pass, appearing on the wing to finish tries (it was ruled out, but the point stands) or sheer grunt in the tight exchanges ball-in-hand to get his side on the front-foot or strong defensive efforts, everything he did seemed to have huge ramifications on the game.
Liebenburg always found himself in the right place at the right time to make a difference for his side, which aided in their fightback. He was the true nuts and bolts behind this Leicester performance with a display that could alert Rassie Erasmus.
Ethan Staddon
He has had to be patient for his chance, but he certainly took it here with a really strong outing.
This Bath back-row has been built on sheer work-rate, intensity and desire, and he had that in bucketfuls as he threw himself into every breakdown, tackle and carry without any regard for his own body.
That performance will certainly do his chances of featuring for the rest of the season some good, and again proves the strength of Bath’s wider squad.
Alfie Barbeary
English number eights have gone very well this season, and Alfie Barbeary added his name to that list on Saturday. This is exactly the performance Borthwick would have wanted from him ahead of the Autumn Nations Series squad release, as he charged around like a bull in a china shop.
He was again Bath’s main weapon in the tight, consistently making himself available for work, but then also picked his moments to have some huge breaks to get his side up the pitch.
Again, he faces a lot of competition to make the wider England squad, but this would have done his chances some good.
Losers
Dan Frost
He actually went very well across the game, notably scoring the opening try of the day, but he unfortunately came off with a hand injury early in the second-half. Otherwise was good.
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Bath bomb squad
We’ve become so used to seeing Bath’s bench coming on and blowing teams away, but they didn’t quite have the same impact against Leicester. There wasn’t really anything wrong with them to be fair. In fact they probably did a decent job in isolation, but that usual switch just wasn’t flicked as Leicester managed to stay right in the fight.
Bath
In a similar line of thinking, there was just something slightly off about Bath on Saturday. They looked frightening at times, breaking through the Tigers line whenever they felt like it, but then that was compounded by a really uncharacteristic error or just a lapse in judgment.
Take the Santi Carreras pass into touch in the second-half as the prime example of that, we’ve just so used to Bath finishing chances like that off, but here they lacked their usual clinical edge and it told in the end.
Bath could have put that game to bed, but now leave with a feeling of ‘what if’.
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