THE deafening silence of 10,000 people, knuckles white with anxiety, greeted Michael Lynagh as he meticulously prepared the deciding kick in Sunday's Tetley's Bitter Cup fifth round tie.

Between the posts and Saracens were through, avenging their ignominious Boxing Day defeat. A miss and Leicester would surely take the honours.

If a pin had dropped, heads would have turned to see what all the noise was about. But Lynagh stared steadfastly at his goal, the tumultuous events of the week but a memory.

Three paces, a kick and the Saracens fans erupted with joy. Their team had but two minutes to survive and survive they certainly did to record a famous victory.

This thrilling climax came at the end of a game which belonged almost exclusively to the home side.

As Leicester coach Bob Dwyer said after the match: "I don't think we played well. We made too many unforced errors and we must have passed the ball to the opposition at least four times."

The teams ran out into a cauldron of bad blood emanating from an angry Boxing Day league encounter, won by the Tigers after some world-class boxing had overshadowed the early stages of the game.

On Saturday, Vicarage Road witnessed no such ugly scenes. Both sides kept their tempers well, giving a disciplined, if not always scintillating, display.

The only serious disciplinary incident saw Neil Back given a yellow card for a late tackle on Lynagh, later described as a "minor shove" by Dwyer.

In a mirror-image of the Boxing Day game, the action was slow in starting.

The first 20 minutes were spent playing a game of cat and mouse, both sides kicking away possession far too often, but Saracens ultimately coming out on top of these early skirmishes.

It took Leicester until the end of the first quarter to actually win a lineout ball, thanks to some sterling work by Sarries' jumpers Danny Grewcock and Paddy Johns.

But it was the first lineout won by the Tigers that lead to a sweeping move which ultimately allowed Springbok Joel Stransky to stroke home his first three points of the afternoon.

It tied the scores, Lynagh had kicked an easy penalty in the fourth minute, and led to a practical stalemate until Stransky was once more allowed to kick for three more points on the stroke of half-time.

Up to this point, Saracens had made all the right moves, attacking fluidly through the backs, with Ryan Constable looking particularly dangerous.

The Australian winger had almost made it into the right-hand corner on the half-hour, following a cracking break from his opposite number, Richard Wallace, down the left wing.

The Men in Black would certainly have counted themselves very unlucky to be 6-3 down heading for the changing rooms at the break.

What happened three minutes after the restart almost added insult to injury.

A poor pass by Matt Singer went behind Wallace, who had the ball kicked from his grasp by the powerful Eric Miller as he scrambled to retrieve the position.

Michael Horak was on hand to grab the advantage and slipped a decidedly forward-looking pass to Stransky for the most unfortunate of breakaway tries.

It would have been rough justice if Saracens had lost thanks to that one move.

As it was, the home side crashed back into action, scored a quick penalty and concentrated on driving Leicester back on their heels.

This they did, to great effect and opened up the space for a marvellous try, created first by a break from Kyran Bracken, good support work from Francois Pienaar then Constable adding the sting of pace to finish the move.

Although Lynagh missed a tricky conversion, the momentum was with Saracens.

It took them to the Leicester line time and again, somehow the visitors always managing to clear the danger.

But when they gave away a penalty in the dying minutes of the game to the left of the posts, there was only one man for the job.

As a morale-booster, the importance of this match cannot be understated.

Saracens have not had the best run of form recently, although they have still maintained their winning ways, and a team with championship aspirations needs to be able to put away sides such as Leicester in the hunt for silverware.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.