Zurich Premiership leaders Bath inflicted a fifth successive defeat on Leicester to get back to winning ways in front of a sell-out 9,980 crowd at the Recreation Ground.

With so many World Cup players missing from both sides the contest lacked quality.

Again it was the muscular Bath pack that ensured a seventh win out of eight for the home team and new signing, South African centre Robbie Fleck, had few opportunities to show his quality.

Leicester's woes began just a few hours before kick-off when wing Leon Lloyd pulled out with a troublesome ankle forcing a reshuffle of the back line in which Austin Healey switched to wing and Ramiro Pez was restored at fly-half.

Their pack was bolstered by the inclusion of Scottish lock Stewart Campbell signed this week on loan from Leeds.

Bath, who have had their own injury problems among the backs, were quickly into their stride however with penalties in the fourth and seventh minutes from the prolific Olly Barkley.

The young centre missed another opportunity from 45 metres and there was a clear sense of frustration as the leaders failed to make their superiority count.

The first try came out of the blue on 20 minutes after good work on the right wing by Andrew Higgins finally earned Bath an opening and number eight Isaac Fea'unati barged his way through from 20 metres. Barclay converted.

Leicester's best chance came shortly afterwards with former All Black Daryl Gibson breaking into Bath's 22 and only a professional foul by Higgins prevented Leicester earning a try. Instead they had to be content with a Pez penalty.

Then Bath piled on the pressure at the other end and quick thinking by Martyn Wood saw the scrum-half kick a penalty crossfield to where prop Duncan Bell set up Matt Perry for an unconverted try.

Bath's 18-3 half-time lead was whittled away by two Pez penalties before he and Bath fly-half Chris Malone exchanged drop-goals to leave Bath 21-12 ahead.

The sin-binning of Bath loosehead David Flatman took the sting out of the Bath response until Barkley kicked a 67th-minute penalty and then broke through on 75 minutes to score under the posts, also adding the conversion.

Meanwhile referee Ashley Rowden had also issued yellow cards to Bath skipper Steve Borthwick and Leicester's replacement back row Adam Balding after a innocuous-looking scuffle.

The last word went to Healey, scoring a try in injury time. But Bath were happy to collect yet another victory in their amazing transformation from the side which only just escaped relegation in May.