Cardiff Blues vs Leicester Tigers (2008–09 Heineken Cup)
| Event | 2008–09 Heineken Cup | ||||||
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| Leicester won 7–6 on penalties | |||||||
| Date | 3 May 2009 | ||||||
| Venue | Millennium Stadium, Cardiff | ||||||
| Man of the Match | Tom Croft (Leicester) | ||||||
| Referee | Alain Rolland (Ireland) | ||||||
| Attendance | 44,212 | ||||||
The second semi-final of the 2008–09 Heineken Cup, the premier European club rugby union competition, saw Cardiff Blues take on Leicester Tigers at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on 3 May 2009. The scores were level after regular time and neither team was able to score during extra time, resulting in the first ever penalty shoot-out in a professional rugby match. Both teams missed one of their first five kicks, taking the shoot-out to sudden death. Both teams were successful with their kicks in the first two rounds of sudden death, before Martyn Williams missed Cardiff's eighth kick allowing Jordan Crane to hit the winner.
In regular time, Cardiff took an early lead with a penalty before Leicester's Scott Hamilton scored a converted try and they kicked another penalty. Cardiff scored three further penalties to put them back into the lead, before another successful penalty by Leicester gave them a one-point lead going into half-time. Early in the second half, Geordan Murphy scored another try for Leicester, which again was converted and kicked two more penalties to extend their lead to 26–12 with 20 minutes remaining. Leicester then had two players sent to the sin bin, and Cardiff scored two tries in the last 10 minutes of regular time, first by Jamie Roberts and then Tom James, with both conversions successful to bring the scores level at 26–26 and take the game into extra time.
Following the match, there was criticism of the format used for the penalty shoot-out, specifically the way that the game was decided by kicks at goal attempted by players who wouldn't ordinarily kick the ball during a rugby match. One journalist commented that was a "ludicrous" way of deciding a game, while another believed it had turned the semi-final into a "pantomime" and was an "unnecessarily demeaning way" of deciding a winner. A review was promised by tournament organisers, and changes were made to the format ahead of the following season's tournament, though no other Heineken Cup match ever needed to be decided by a penalty shoot-out.
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