Leicester Tigers 18-22 Saracens | Aviva Premiership Rugby Final | 28-05-11

Saracens survived a Leicester onslaught in a riveting finale at Twickenham to win their first ever Premiership title.
Tigers, four points down, went through 32 phases before winning a penalty six minutes into injury-time, but Sarries then won one of their own to prevail.
Saracens led 16-9 at half-time after a try from wing James Short, Owen Farrell converting and adding three penalties.
His fourth put Sarries 19-9 up but two more from Toby Flood, either side of a fifth from Farrell, saw a nervy finish.
For a game that climaxed in one of the most nailbiting endings ever seen in a Premiership final it started rather timidly, as both teams opted to sound each other out through the boot.
But it came alive on four minutes when a searing break by Schalk Brits put Neil de Kock into space and almost took him to the line.

When the ball did not emerge from the resulting ruck referee Wayne Barnes pulled Ben Youngs aside and sent the England number nine to the sin-bin for killing the ball.
With fewer than five minutes gone Tigers were a man down and three points behind when Farrell landed the resulting penalty from the 22.
With centre Anthony Allen deputising at scrum-half Tigers went on the offensive and a huge up and under from Flood, brilliantly gathered by Matt Smith, put them on the front foot.
Alesana Tuilagi and Martin Castrogiovanni made some hard yards into the Sarries 22 before Tigers won a penalty, which Flood converted to make it 3-3 with 10 minutes on the clock.
But the restart was a horror show for Tigers as Allen threw a wild pass above Flood's head. The England man lost control of the ball before Allen just managed to ground it with Sarries' pack bearing down.
An early engagement from the five-metre scrum allowed Tigers off the hook and Flood cleared their lines.
Youngs returned with quarter of an hour gone but Tigers were struggling to find their stride before they won a penalty 40m out, which Flood converted to make it 6-3 on 18 minutes.
Leicester were in front on the scoreboard but it was the men in black who were playing the better rugby as their expansive game seemed to catch the Tigers by surprise.

Man of the match Brits was a constant thorn in the Tigers' side, running superb lines from all over the pitch.
Farrell pulled Saracens level at 6-6 a quarter of the way through the game with a penalty in front of the posts.
The intensity was immense and the only try of the game came on 29 minutes when Brits, who was sensational all afternoon, fixed his defender and fed Short, who shrugged off Hamilton's desperate tackle to touch down in the left corner.
Referee Barnes went to the video official to confirm the try and Farrell landed the touchline conversion to put Sarries 13-6 in front.
Saracens continued to counter-attack but when Tigers worked the phases, looking to their strike runners, the door was continually slammed in their face by fantastic defending.
Ernst Joubert's pick from number eight and De Kock's break down the right saw Tigers offside at the ruck and when Farrell landed the kick from in front of the posts it was 16-6 to the challengers with half-time approaching.
Flood pulled his side back to within one score when Saracens dropped a scrum 25m out to make it 16-9 at the interval.
Farrell gave Sarries the perfect start to the second half when he converted a 35m penalty after Matt Stevens outscrummaged Castrogiovanni, the teenage stand-off restoring his side's 10-point lead.
Tigers adopted a kick-chase tactic to gain ground and earned a penalty when David Strettle was caught trying to run out of defence. Flood landed the kick to make it 19-12.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• sar
• tig
• 310511
• premiership
• rugby
• championship
• Rubgy
• Aviva
• Northampton
• Gloucester
• london irish
• newcastle
• exeter
• northampton
• harlequins
• sale
• leicester
• wasps
• saracens
• leeds carnegie
• lewis moody
• england
• english
• six nations
• france
• wales
• italy
• scotland
• ireland
• johnny wilkinson
• simon taylor
• kelly brownjason shoemark
• new zealand
• australia
• south africa
• andy powell
• dominic waldouck
• paul williams
• thomas waldrom
• tagicakibau
• Samao
• tuilagi

[PremiershipRugby]

Another outstanding Premiership Rugby season has drawn to a close, but the entertainment doesn't stop there. Why not tell us what you would like to see in this channel ahead of a mouthwatering 2011-12 season...

[eternity4everusa]

@TheCrazyMosquito salak misin sen? her gordugun yere turkish falan yaziyorsun. ac tarihllerine bak adamlarin. nasil bir kafaniz var amk. sanki turkish yazinca itibarimiz artiyor. lan allah tan messi falan turk degil yoksa her yere turkish yazardiniz. git bak messi nin videolarina. argentinian, argentina ya da benzeri seyler yaziyor mu yorumlarda.

[TheCrazyMosquito]

is it turkish flag? turkish rugby team..

[GodSaveOurTeam]

@premiershiprugby

You appear to think that rugby is football, ie. only the 'goals' should go in the highlights. It is not. This is why the ITV World Cup highlights are so lame: they don't give any impression of what the game was actually like, only that some points were scored at certain stages.

[paperculups]

It was a good game but these highlights only show the scores and none of the piercing runs, big hits etc..

[sexykatie90]

thumbs up if you like Leicester Tigers 18-22 Saracens | Aviva Premiership Rugby Final | 28-05-11

[adamaddful]

@TheOtherBillyWoo it was a pretty good game, the highlights just showed all the points gained! it was quite a good match for saracens and saracens were defending for there try line for 7 min so the game was pretty good for saracens standards...

[TheOtherBillyWoo]

This is the first time I've seen any highlights (excluding general news) from the match thanks to the ESPN black out. Looks like it was a crap game anyway.

[KwyKz0r]

@mangos118 yeah, im just talking about the highlights - i didnt see that match :)

[mangos118]

@KwyKz0r last 5-10 mins were unbeleivable, but yeah the rest was ok

[Sanchez567]

Saracens proving why they may be the most effective team in the Premiership at the moment but by hell are they dull in doing it. By far the most boring team who has won the title but kudos to them for building it on South African mercenary muscle and some brilliant defence coaching. Venter is still the biggest twat in rugby though