MATCH REPORT: Bath Rugby 27-21 Leicester

Bath Rugby came out triumphant in 'the Clash' as they secured a 27-21 win over rivals Leicester to stay in the hunt for the final Premiership play-off spot.

A loss against Leicester would probably have ended Bath's hopes of finishing fourth, and for long spells at Twickenham it seemed as though 'the Clash' was going to leave a sour taste in Bath mouths, but two late tries from Anthony Watson rescued the Blue, Black and White.

Bath looked to have been affected by the occasion in the early stages at Twickenham, as they found themselves 12-0 down shortly after the 10-minute mark.

Freddie Burns, who is set to join Bath in the forthcoming summer, set up Brendan O'Connor, who went over for the first try of the match as early as the third minute.

Burns kept his allegiance to Leicester and converted the kick to give the Tigers a 7-0 lead before Bath had time to think.

By the time the 11th minute came around it seemed like it was going to be a long, long afternoon for Bath when Tongan Telusa Veainu kicked over the defence and collected to go over for 12-0, but Burns missed the kick this time.

Jonathan Joseph got Todd Blackadder's men back in the game on the 20-minute mark when he finished off a brilliant team move and crossed the whitewash and George Ford added the extras for 7-12.

Ford was pinpoint with another kick, this time a penalty, to get the score even closer at 10-12 but Burns replied with a penalty of his own, and the score was 10-15 at the break.

An attendance of 61,868 saw Burns kick through a second penalty, 10-18 but this time Ford replied for 13-18.

With a little over 15 minutes to go Burns, and Leicester, got their last points of the game when Bath-bound Burns notched a third penalty.

As the clock ticked down though, Bath roared to victory.

First, in the 67th minute, Toby Faletau found space in the Leicester defence and offloaded to Watson who went down and Ford was spot-on with his kick to make it a one-point game at 20-21.

Leicester were reduced to 14 men 10 minutes from time when JP Pietersen was binned for a deliberate knock-on, and Bath made the most of the numerical advantage.

Seconds later, in fact, as Watson crossed over for his brace following a brilliant pass from Matt Banahan and Ford made no mistake to make the game safe.

Despite the win, Bath stay fifth, but they are level on points with Leicester with three games of the season still to play.