IT does not have to be like this, it really doesn't, but somehow it always is when Bath and Leicester come together on a grand stage. The silver jubilee Pilkington Cup Final had been utterly forgettable until it was drawing its dying breath yet now no one will ever forget it for its controversial finish.

Bath triumphed, if that is not too grandiose a term, for the 10th time in their 10 finals in 13 seasons, by once more dredging their unfathomable depths as only Bath can do to win 16-15. The decisive end-product was a penalty try conceded by Leicester after 79 minutes 17 seconds, which Jonathan Callard converted to win the match by a point.

Never have losers looked more crushed. At the final whistle the World Cup referee Steve Lander was pushed to the ground by Back - inadvertently, so the Leicester flanker insisted to general incredulity. The Tigers' rugby was then subject to a hyperbolic assault by the Bath manager, John Hall.

Bath achieved their fourth double in seven years and the champions, as ever, did their best with limited means to be creative. But they were so constrained by Leicester's rigid control of the set phases that their ambition went mostly unrequited.

The first Leicester try began characteristically with a maul but continued exceptionally with the devastating acceleration of prop Darren Garforth. This so committed the Bath defence that when the ball came back - rapidly, for once - Niall Malone was unmarked and went through a gap as wide as the gap between the Twickenham posts.

This was a tantalising early glimpse of the possible but Leicester were unable to build by the usual means of John Liley's boot and it was, not until the 75th minute that a foul-up between, Bath's Graham Dawe and Nigel Redman at a defensive line-out enabled Matthew Poole to pluck the wayward throw and flop over for Leicester's second try.

It is at such crisis moments that Bath reveal their inner selves a Liley missed the conversion as, critically, he had four of five penalty kicks, and at six points adrift, Bath were about to prove they were still within reach.