Barkley boost for England as bubbling Bath silence Tigers

Leicester 12 Bath 15

Bath star Barkley returned ahead of schedule as the English west country club silenced Leicester’s roar with a 15-12 win at the Walkers Stadium on Saturday to book their first Heineken Cup final semi-final appearance since being crowned European champions eight years ago.

Barkley missed England’s entire RBS 6 Nations campaign after undergoing thumb surgery which sidelined him for 10 weeks.

“I hope, selection and form-permitting, I will be going on the summer tour,” said Barkley.

“I would like to go and I am just glad I have got a game like a Heineken Cup quarter-final under my belt.”

If Barkley faces the Wallabies in June, it is unlikely he will be involved in an occasion more dramatic than the frenzied closing moments of Bath’s unexpected win over Leicester.

There seemed no way they could survive a late onslaught after French referee Joel Jutge sin-binned props David Flatman and Taufa’ao Filise for scrummaging offences during a demoralising three-minute spell.

It left 13-man Bath camped on their own line for the final 10 minutes - but with players like Danny Grewcock and Andy Beattie producing defensive displays way beyond the call of normal duty, Leicester found every potential route to glory fearlessly blocked off.

“I thought the game was going to slip away from us, but you won’t see greater heroics than you saw from the Bath players in those final frantic few minutes,” said Bath coach Brian Ashton. “How we held out defies belief. On three or four occasions, I thought they were going to score - and I still don’t know how they didn’t.”

Bath prevailed through five Chris Malone penalties, his decisive strike the result of an offside blunder by Tigers’ England flanker Lewis Moody.

LEICESTER: Vesty, Murphy, Lloyd, Smith, Hipkiss, Goode, Ellis, Rowntree, Chuter, White, Kay, L. Deacon, Jennings, Moody, Corry.

Replacements: A. Tuilagi for Lloyd (62), Healey for Ellis (58), Buckland for Chuter (40), Abraham for Jennings (67).

BATH: Stephenson, Higgins, Crockett, Barkley, Bory, Malone, Walshe, Filise, Mears, Bell, Hudson, Grewcock, Beattie, Delve, Fea’unati.

Replacements: Cheeseman for Crockett (67), Flatman for Bell (50), Short for Hudson (37), Lipman for Delve (62).

Referee: Joel Judge (France).