Balshaw shut out of the game by Leicester cover!

Mike Catt gets smothered!

Dan Lyle attempts to hip-kick his way out of the clutches of Neil Back!

The Tigers match winning trio of: Healey, Howard and Johnson start the champagne celebrations!

The RFU's Twickenham Big Day Out continued, with the Zurich Premiership Championsip Final between Leicester Tigers and Bath. Wasps had been beaten by an inspired Bath at Loftus Rd. thus setting up the final encounter with Leicester at Twickenham. Prospectively a mouth-watering rugby feast.

The game started at a furious pace with Bath attempting to unsettle the Leicester game plan at the outset. Leicester though had prepared well and their covering defence was quick to snuff out the Bath attacks. Bath eventually went ahead from a Matt Perry penalty, but earlier they had lost Shaun Berne and with his departure went some of the sparkle and cutting edge in the Bath backs. Leicester, although spending less time in the Bath twenty two were able to make their attacks more telling and from one such attack Martin Johnson fought his way through a ruck to score the first try of the game. As the half developed it became apparent that although prior to the game the Bath backs had been thought to be the danger men, the Leicester combination of: Goode, Lloyd and Howard were showing more pace and penetration. Bath were unable to provide enough clean ball to Mike Catt from the set pieces, as a consequence he was unable to run the game and thus frustrate the Leicester game plan. Score at Half Time: Leicester 7, Bath 3.

Five minutes into the second half Stimpson was successful with a penalty kick and then, following pressure on the Bath line, Austin Healey responding quickly when a penalty was awarded, dashed over for a try. The conversion by Tim Stimpson brought the scoreline to Leicester Tigers 17 Bath 3. Bath forced to up the tempo employed a variety of attacking options but were frustrated by firm Leicester covering and the occasional resort to delaying tactics by the Leicester defence. Martin Johnson is an intimidating presence and although spoken to by the referee, Steve Lander, escaped without Leicester losing a player in the sin-bin. Much to the frustration of Mike Catt.

Twenty three minutes into the second half saw Balshaw leave the field through injury, Bath's attacking options were further depleted and when on twenty seven minutes the Tigers centre combination set Winston Stanley free to score a fine try in the right hand corner, even a well worked response by the Bath backs: Catt, Boyce, Perry and Thirlby provided small consolation to the ambitions of the Bath Team. In the end, Bath had posed less of a threat to the Tigers ambitions than had Gloucester in their Heineken Semi-final encounter with the league Champions.

Final score: Leicester Tigers 22, Bath 10.