Inspired Perese try edges Leicester past Sale and into Premiership final
And so it is the two grand old clubs of English rugby,Leicester will face off against Bath in the Premiership final at Twickenham next Saturday – and the rest of us will have to check which century we are in,Leicester, admittedly, have featured far more among the honours this millennium, which is to say at all, than their arch rivals from the West Country, who so dominated the 1980s and 1990s,But neither team, if you asked their hoariest old warriors, could pick a foe they would rather lock horns with on what will no doubt be a sunny afternoon at HQ,This was a darker and more swirling affair.
The Tigers seemed to have Sale in their pockets for half the match, but the visitors rallied midway through the second to level the scores with only 15 to play,Their tails seemed up,Then came a flash of brilliance – not the first of the afternoon by any means – and all that darkness was pierced by a try fit to win a semi-final,The final minutes played out to Leicester’s beefiest squeezing out Manchester’s, as English rugby’s largest support bellowed them on,So familiar.
A bit like next week might feel.“There’s what we can handle, what we’re in charge of,” said Michael Cheika, as he looked forward to his second major final at Twickenham, after the Rugby World Cup final in 2015.“And then there’s what the other team’s in charge of.That game was physical today.It was another level up from anything that’s been played this season.
Next weekend will be again.”Intensity guaranteed, then.And there was plenty of it in this semi-final, after the pyrotechnics of the one the night before.Neither Leicester nor Sale are known for their lightness of touch.Nor did they flourish any of it for much of the match.
But let it be noted that the decisive breakthroughs owed everything to brilliance.Welford Road bade farewell to some of Leicester’s greatest servants, Dan Cole, Ben Youngs and captain Julián Montoya playing their last matches at the old place, but it was the relative newcomers who won the match.Adam Radwan’s two first-half tries, his 10th and 11th in 10 matches since his arrival mid-season from Newcastle, were taken with stunning audacity to earn Leicester a 10-point lead at the break.Solomone Kata carried hard off a scrum, and Jack van Poortvliet flung the ball wide to Radwan on the blindside.One step did for three defenders scampering desperately across – and a few more set up the customary dive across the line for his first.
His second try, though, featured a dive that defied belief.After much close-quarter intensity, Handre Pollard sent a cross-kick to unmarked Radwan on the right.He scuffed it horribly, such that the ball seemed certain to fall out of reach over the line.But Radwan had other ideas.He swallow-dived on the run and reached out to catch the ball as he fell to ground – over the tryline.
Those two flashes earned Leicester a 13-3 lead at the break.Sale had barely fired a shot, but the fightback duly came.Their lightness tends to be supplied by George Ford, a previous champion with Leicester.A second penalty of the match by the old maestro, early in the second half, gave notice.Then Sale struck just shy of the hour.
Sign up to The BreakdownThe latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewedafter newsletter promotionAfter more bashing from a penalty to the corner, sweet interplay between the Curry twins and Ford sent Rob du Preez between the posts.Ford’s third penalty, from an angled 40 metres a few minutes later, after Sale had replaced their props and squeezed a penalty out of a scrum, silenced the 20,000.Then, come the hour, or at least the 68th minute, come Izaia Perese.The Wallaby whose season has been so disrupted by injury had been on for barely a minute when he burst on to a pass from 40 metres out.He skinned the first man and left the rest trailing to seize the keys to Twickenham.
Sale pressed at the very death, having survived another siege of muscle and roars, when Luke Cowan-Dickie spilled the ball with the clock deep in the red.Euphoria, but there was one last TMO intervention to endure.Freddie Steward and Cowan-Dickie had clashed heads.The former’s tackle was deemed legit.Leicester berserk all over again.
Some heroes of yore had the send-off they craved,But there is one last battle to come,
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