Tigers tamed by Quins

Harlequins made a perfect start to their LV= Cup campaign by taking a well-deserved 34-25 victory against Leicester at Welford Road.

The visitors named a strong side and outscored a lacklustre Tigers outfit by three tries to one, as stand-off Nick Evans starred with a 19-point haul.

Leicester managed a strong scrummaging display but their attacking efforts were largely lifeless until the last 10 minutes, with six penalties from Billy Twelvetrees and a late penalty try their only scoring efforts.

Quins started the brighter and had opened the scoring within three minutes, as the Tigers were penalised at a ruck and Evans nailed a difficult kick from halfway.

Two minutes later Leicester were level when centre Twelvetrees kicked a 30-metre penalty, but Evans quickly got Quins back on top with a simple penalty.

Lead

The visitors continued to boss the opening exchanges and Evans extended the lead to 12-3 after 16 minutes as he knocked over two penalties in quick succession.

Despite difficult conditions due to incessant rain, Quins managed to move the ball sweetly from inside their own half and continued to control the contest.

But the Londoners were then penalised and Twelvetrees knocked over the penalty to make it 12-6, before the centre kicked another penalty from the halfway-line soon afterwards

Quins still looked the more creative, however, with Leicester unable to build any attacking momentum from open play.

But the Leicester pack were starting to assert themselves in the set-piece area and Twelvetrees kicked another goal to level the scores when the Quins pack were penalised at a scrum.

Try

Quins went on to score the first try of the night in the 33rd minute after breaking away from a scrum 35 metres out and Tomas Vallejos sold a neat dummy to cross the try-line, with Evans converting before he missed with a long-range penalty.

Leicester were then dealt a double blow on the stroke of half-time as Rob Hawkins was sin-binned and Evans kicked the resulting penalty to leave the Tigers trailing 22-12.

A fifth penalty from Twelvetrees cut into that lead six minutes into the second half, and Hawkins was able to return with no major damage to the scoreline.

But Quins were soon to score their second try when Gonzalo Camacho fielded a kick ahead to race away and play in the supporting Tom Guest for the score.

And Harlequins effectively killed the game off with their third try after 65 minutes as Evans received the ball from a line-out before putting in a beautifully judged cross-field kick which Camacho collected to score.

With eight minutes to go the Harlequins scrum lost Chris Brooker, who was shown the yellow card.

Now down to a seven-man pack, the visitors conceded a penalty try which George Ford converted, but prevented any further scoring despite coming under heavy pressure late on.