MATT Banahan’s brilliant hat-trick hauled Bath Rugby into the Aviva Premiership final this afternoon as they romped to 47-10 victory with a magnificent seven-try mauling of Leicester Tigers.

Mike Ford’s side were in exhilarating form in front of a pumped up crowd at The Rec, showing a clinical cutting edge in the red zone to rack up another monster scoreline against their fierce rivals.

Kyle Eastmond, Peter Stringer, George Ford and Anthony Watson also touched down as Bath set up a shot at Premiership glory in the Twickenham showpiece against Saracens next Saturday.

Banahan gave Bath a dream start with a try in the opening few minutes. Newly-crowned England player of the year Jonathan Joseph continued the scintillating form he has shown all season to create the score, drawing the Tigers defence after a prolonged attack before sending winger Banahan into space just yards from the line. Ford added the extras.

Leicester began to grow into the game but Freddie Burns missed two chances to put the on the scoreboard when penalties went begging, although the former Bath Academy player did succeed with his third attempt midway through the half.

But from there Bath bagged two opportunistic tries to turn the screw, with the first coming through Banahan’s second. Leicester’s Adam Thompstone spilled a high ball close to his own line and the hosts pounced, with the forwards going close before finally Ford, Joseph and Banahan combined to see the latter over the whitewash. Ford’s kick was again good.

And Bath then made it two scores in quick succession thanks to a piece of brilliance from wing Semesa Rokoduguni. The Fijian-born England international fielded a wide looping pass before shrugging off Veroniki Goneva and chipping ahead, where the bounce favoured the flying Eastmond to dot down. Ford converted to put Bath’s lead up to 18 points.

However, Tigers gave themselves a lifeline in the closing stages of the half. They laid siege to the Bath line and both Watson and Leroy Houston were shown yellow cards for infringements.

Bath’s 13 men looked like surviving to the break unscathed, but their resilience finally broke when Leicester’s England hooker Tom Youngs muscled his way over from close range with just 30 seconds to go, with Burns’ kick reducing the deficit to 21-10 at the change of ends.

Tigers continued to have the momentum as the second half got under way but again chances went begging as Burns sent a third kick wide of the posts.

Even a switch to Thompstone from the tee failed to spark the desired response as he was also off-target with what had seemed a makeable kick.

Bath made them pay in ruthless fashion as Stringer was able to dot down after a blistering attack. Carl Fearns broke loose before Francois Louw continued the move and when the Springbok flanker was tackled 15m out he popped up to veteran scrum-half Stringer to race in, converted by Ford.

Ford then got over the whitewash himself after a charging run by Rokoduguni up the right, although for the first time his boot failed from the tee.

The hosts then added extra gloss to the scoreline in the dying stages, rampaging against a flagging Tigers side as first Banahan completed his try treble before full-back Watson completed the rout with the final play of the match.

Ford converted both touchdowns to ensure Bath scored even more points than in their emphatic 45-0 success over the Tigers at The Rec in the regular season back in September.