Tigers ease past Warriors

Leicester Tigers ran in five tries to secure a bonus-point victory over Worcester Warriors at Welford Road.

The Tigers prevailed 38-5 in an error-strewn affair to heap more misery on Worcester, who are second bottom of the Guinness Premiership and without a league win in three months.

Leicester scored their tries in quick bursts in each half. Marcos Ayerza and Alex Tuilagi crossed in quick succession before the break and Ben Youngs, Sam Vesty and Matt Smith touched down in eight second-half minutes.

Both teams struggled for cohesion during the opening quarter, the low point of which was a wayward penalty kick to touch from Leicester full-back Geordan Murphy.

Instead of setting up a lineout deep in Worcester territory, Murphy's kick rolled dead which meant play was brought back to half-way and Worcester were awarded a scrum.

Punished

The deadlock was eventually broken by Leicester's French scrum-half Julien Dupuy, who slotted a 22nd-minute penalty after Worcester were caught off-side at a ruck.

Worcester spurned the chance to draw level within three minutes when fly-half Joey Carlisle made a hash of a kickable penalty attempt, awarded when French referee Romaine Poite again spotted an offside infringement.

Leicester eventually found some fluency to score two tries, both converted by Dupuy, in three minutes.

Argentinian prop Ayerza got the first, finishing off a move which was started by Aaron Mauger's misplaced pass and continued by Scott Hamilton's diagonal run.

Tuilagi then stormed to the line from close to halfway, powering through attempted tackles from Rico Gear and Carlisle.

Momentum

But Leicester lost momentum with another slow start to the second period, which allowed Worcester - who brought on England Saxons prop Matt Mullan and former All Blacks lock Greg Rawlinson to beef up their pack - back into the contest.

A sweeping move led to number eight Kai Hortsmann putting lock Will Bowley over for a try that Carlisle failed to convert.

Worcester had captain Pat Sanderson and replacement prop Aleki Lutui sin-binned for killing the ball and uncontested scrums were awarded for the final quarter when the home side ran out of front-row forwards.

Replacement Johne Murphy had a try disallowed for putting a foot in touch but Worcester's resistance was broken when replacement scrum-half Youngs went over from close range.

Tom Croft then set up Vesty, centre Matt Smith crossed unopposed and Vesty put the seal on the victory by kicking three conversions.