Relief for Blackadder as beleaguered Bath hold on for first win in Leicester for 14 years

Bath boss and former Edinburgh player Todd Blackadder was a relieved man after his team claimed a first Aviva Premiership victory over Leicester at Welford Road since 2003.

Bath’s 27-23 triumph came despite having three players – Kahn Fotuali’i, Matt Garvey and Matt Banahan – sinbinned during a frenzied final 12 minutes. But they held on to give themselves a flying start in the league before hosting European champions Saracens this Saturday.

“I am just so pleased we hung on by our fingernails, basically,” rugby director Blackadder said. “We shouldn’t have put ourselves in that position. We had the game under control, and we let them back into it.

“I haven’t really had a good look at them [yellow cards]. But you can’t afford to put yourself at risk. We could have got a yellow in the first half for what looked a high tackle that we probably got away with.”

Bath’s poor away form last season probably derailed their title play-off hopes and Blackadder added: “All of our preseason games were away. We have been training away once a week and I thought the boys did a great job.

“Probably that last 20 minutes, there was a nagging doubt that we had been here before, we were on the road, would we blow it? But I am just so pleased that we didn’t.”

Ultimately, Bath stole Manu Tuilagi’s thunder after the England centre scored his first Premiership try since the opening day of last season as he started a first competitive Leicester game for eight months.

Bath’s Wales-born centre Max Clark touched down twice in the first half, while wing Semesa Rokoduguni posted an 80-metre interception score and stand-off Rhys Priestland added all three conversions plus two penalties.

Tigers stand-off George Ford kicked two penalties and a conversion against the club he left earlier this year, but Leicester never got going as they crashed to an opening weekend defeat despite debutant Jonny May scoring two late tries.

Leicester head coach Matt O’connor said: “We probably had enough opportunities to win, but I certainly wouldn’t say we deserved to win. We left a lot of opportunities on the field.”