Leicster 13 Llanelli 12To say Leicester were lucky to beat Llanelli yesterday in an achingly tense semi-final is the literal truth but would give a widely false impression. Tim Stimpson will never kick another penalty as outlandish as the last-minute match-winning effort from five metres inside his own half which bounced off both crossbar and post before it crept over, but Leicester's ability to keep their nerve in tight situations has long bordered on the uncanny.
Just as they stole their European title from Stade Francais in Paris last season by coming from behind in the closing minutes, so they did here in front of 29,849 spectators who did not see an awful lot of rugby, but will remember Stimpson's last-gasp kick for years.
Taking the angle into account, the Tigers' full back was 60 metres from the Llanelli posts after the referee David McHugh had penalised the gallant Scarlets for collapsing a scrum. He struck it well enough, as he had to, but it was dipping when it struck the bar and required a hefty nudge from the left-hand upright to help it over.
On such fateful bounces do entire careers hinge.
By virtue of scoring the only try of a brutally physical game, and at least attempting to show some invention out wide, Leicester will consider the better side won in the end, and remain on target to become the first team to retain the European Cup.
Llanelli, though, deserved much sympathy, having lost to a late English kick in a European semi-final for the second time in three years; Northampton's Paul Grayson went on to win his side the tournament and Stimpson could easily do the same against Munster next month.
The Munster coach Declan Kidney was present to assess the opposition but, in all honesty, will have learned little he did not already know.
Leicester did not play with anything like the crispness they show on their best days and, with McHugh's whistle persistently halting their best efforts, the Tigers' frustration almost eclipsed their well-honed survival instincts.
Conditions, to be fair, did not help with a spiteful, swirling wind and heavy rain playing into the hands of Llanelli's limited but fiercely executed game-plan. Even allowing for the slippery ball, however, the Tigers took a worrying number of wrong options in the first half, conceded 22 turnovers and four of their own lineouts, and will look back at the video through closed fingers.
Even Martin Johnson was guilty of knocking the ball on under minimal pressure and, in Stephen Jones, the tournament's leading scorer, the Scarlets possessed the perfect man for the wet-weather occasion.
His fourth penalty in the 54th minute seemed as if it might be enough to send the massed Welsh choirs into ecstasy.
What also saved the Tigers, apart from two rare misses by Jones, was the game's only try by the teenage scrumhalf Harry Ellis three minutes into the second half. Freddie Tuilagi came steaming into midfield to run at Jones and, as the ruck formed, McHugh indicated an advantage.
Too many Llanelli defenders were either distracted or disarmed and Ellis broke clear down the middle, sliding intelligently over the greasy surface to ensure he made the line.
Stimpson converted the first try in three meetings between the sides this season and Leicester were ahead for the first time. Like Munster it is a position from which they normally profit but Llanelli, to their credit, were never intimidated.
The crack when Martyn Madden and Johnson clashed heads in the first half could be heard across Nottingham and Austin Healey was given another uncomfortable afternoon. In Ben Kay and Neil Back, though, Leicester found determined rallying points and, for all the Scarlets' territorial pressure, the only time the Welsh side looked like scoring a try was from a couple of charged-down kicks.
By this time the neutral viewer was entitled to yearn for a little more skill and enterprise, but the best, as so often with Leicester in Europe, was reserved until last.
Until this season sides have been allowed to hoist team-mates skywards to catch or deflect penalty kicks, but the practice has been outlawed and so Llanelli could only vainly stand and watch Stimpson's effort.
The Scarlets' coach Gareth Jenkins admitted his side were "devastated", just as they were last year when a deflected drop-goal by Gloucester's scrumhalf Elton Moncrieff knocked them out of Europe in the pool stages.
For Welsh rugby, it seems, the pain never ends.
LEICESTER: Stimpson; Murphy, Smith, Kafer, Tuilagi (Lloyd, 71); Healey, Ellis (Hamilton, 64); Rowntree, West, Garforth, Johnson (capt), Kay, Moody, Back, Corry.
LLANELLI: Evans (Proctor, 71); M Jones, N Boobyer, L Davies, Finau; S Jones, G Easterby; Madden, McBryde, J Davies, Cooper, Wyatt (Gross, 72), Hodges, S Easterby (I Boobyer, 72), Quinnell (capt).
Referee: D McHugh (Ireland).
Attendance: 29,849.
