MANU TUILAGI and his Leicester Tigers stellar backline played like Leicester Donkeys in a comical defeat to Bath.
Tuilagi, fly-half George Ford, England winger Jonny May and Australia star Matt Toomua flopped on their first run-out at Welford Road.
Battered Bath were reduced to 13-men late on after the sin-binnings of Kahn Fotuali’i and Matt Garvey – then Matt Banahan shortly after Fotuali’i’s return – but still the Tigers couldn’t bite.
And the visitors hung on even as speedster May ran in two late tries despite almost butchering one.
Tigers blew two other open-goals and whilst Ford kicked eight points he left two other gettable conversions out there that would have earned them a draw.
And Leicester boss Matt O’Connor admitted he would go back to the drawing board to sharpen his attack against Northampton Saints in Saturday’s ferocious East Midlands derby.
The Aussie said: “Manu and George have played a lot of football together at England and Matty Toomua is a class operator, but I think we have to go back to the drawing board a bit.
“We had enough opportunities. I wouldn’t say we deserved to win, but we left a lot of opportunities on the field and gave Bath a big start and weren’t good enough to reel them in at the end.
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“They scored against the run of play – the two runaway ones changed the shape of the first half. They came back into the game after our first try and exerted a lot of scoreboard pressure which changed the dynamic of the game.
Bath were clinical when it mattered with Red Rose reject Semesa Rokoduguni showing his class as he intercepted a Ford pass and ran from the edge of his own 22 to score.
Centre Max Clarke hit with a quick-fire brace and Wales fly-half Rhys Priestland did the business off the tee as he struck 12 points for a side whose away form was woeful last season.
And delighted Bath boss Todd Blackadder revealed that training away from home during the week to get rid of their stage-fright was the difference.
He added: “We trained at Cardiff, London Irish and the Dragons and things like that just to help address our away from and mentality.
“The win was huge, last season our away form was poor and that was part of our review. We turned up ready to go. We probably had that nagging doubt in the last 20 – will we blow it – but I was just so pleased that we didn’t.”
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