Heineken Cup: Leicester v Ospreys full-time report

The teams battles for the ball

Leicester 39 Ospreys 22

Late tries from Ben Youngs and Manu Tuilagi killed off a spirited Ospreys side and delivered a bonus point victory for Leicester at Welford Road.

Youngs and Tuilagi went over in the final five minutes to secure a crucial five points for the Tigers as they put right their opening match loss to Toulouse to move level with Ospreys in Pool Two.

The defeat was harsh on a Welsh outfit who had lived with their Aviva Premiership opponents throughout the game until that dramatic ending which saw the Tigers go over three times in the final 10 minutes.

The match had sprung into life in the first minute when former Wales captain Ryan Jones went over, with a successful conversion and penalty from Dan Biggar putting the visitors into a scarcely believable 10-0 lead.

That was the signal for the Tigers to roar back though, and they found themselves level when Toby Flood kicked a penalty before Tuilagi went over for his first try of the day and Flood converted for 10-10.

Ospreys survived a yellow card for Ryan Bevington as they made it to the break level, with Biggar and Flood trading penalties early in the second period before another Flood kick put Tigers in front for the first time.

Jordan Crane took over kicking duties to make it 19-13 to the hosts, but two penalties in four minutes from Biggar saw the match level again, before the dramatic ending.

Flood scored and then missed a penalty, before the England man drove over the line to give his side a real advantage.

He converted his try, and although Biggar scored a penalty to reduce the deficit to seven, any ideas of Ospreys scoring the converted try they needed to level matters soon went out of the window thanks to the superb character shown by the home side.

A fortunate bounce helped Youngs go over in the corner to secure the four points for Tigers with five minutes to go, but having ended up with nothing in France last week Leicester were determined to go for the extra point, and Flood didn’t even go for goal with his conversion attempt in a bid to save time.

It worked, with a final move ending in Tuilagi scoring his second try of the day in the corner to seal a terrific victory which breathes new life into Leicester’s Heineken Cup campaign a week after it threatened to be over.

Mark Jones – follow me on Twitter

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