Richards' Tigers remain untamed

Leicester 27 Gloucester 1

Leicester bade a dismissive farewell to the last serious challengers to their title, establishing a nice round 20-point lead over Gloucester, and now only need to pick the day to collect the Premiership trophy for a fourth straight year.

With breathtaking confidence – some might say arrog-ance – the Tigers never looked in danger of surrendering their four-year-old unbeaten run here in the league. A captain's try by Neil Back, followed by two more from Austin Healey and Dorian West, left Leicester lacking only a bonus point to show for their efforts, a statistic as irrelevant as the two wins the Tigers theoretically still need to bank before uncorking the champagne.

Dean Richards, Leicester's director of rugby, used to greet victories with a lugubrious shrug of the shoulders and, if you were lucky, a small grin. Now the word "delighted" regularly escapes the former traffic policeman's lips more often than local boy racers ever used to.

Richards is revelling in his side's domestic domination, whatever it may say about the strength of the rest of the Premiership. "We squandered a few try-scoring opportunities," Richards said. "But to end up with the scoreline we did, I'm delighted."

His Gloucester counterpart, Nigel Melville, was not quite so chuffed. "I don't think we showed enough composure, and didn't achieve enough phases," he said. "We aspire to beat teams like Leic-ester, but we gave them two tries with defensive mistakes."

Perhaps when Melville gets his feet properly under the table, that distant dream of taming the Tigers will come closer. Although he sat in the grandstand cheek by jowl with his backs and forwards coaches, Paul Turner and Ian Smith, Melville is supposedly not involved in team preparation until his new team have played his old one, Wasps, next month.

It is a curious situation, albeit one that will long be forgotten when the season is done and dusted. More pressing is the question of whether anyone can stop Leicester from repeating their treble of Premiership, play-off Championship and Heineken Cup.

Gloucester, as supposedly the best England has to offer, gave it a good crack, compet-ing more or less equally in the tight exchanges even without Phil Vickery, the captain and England prop who rested an ankle injury before taking on Wales next Saturday.

And should AN Other of Aberavon or wherever be selected by the Welsh to oppose Leicester's Ben Kay in the England engine room at Twickenham, he might care to take a leaf out of Mark Cornwell's book. The Gloucester second row stole the first two of Dorian West's throws to gasps from a sell-out Welford Road.

The difference – surprise, surprise – was in Leicester's use of the ball in the loose. Give the likes of Martin Corry or Lewis Moody a sniff of the open field and they gallop on like Grand National contenders. It required a Becher's Brook of a block tackle by Olivier Azam to halt one early raid by Freddie Tuilagi.

Indeed, Azam put himself about with great effect – the French hooker is enjoying a tremendous season. But Tuilagi continued to see a lot of possession as Leicester backed themselves four times in the first half to kick for position rather than take penalty pots at goal.

First beneficiary of the ploy was Back, who battered over after Will Johnson won a line-out in the Gloucester 22, with Leicester brushing off the early loss of Ollie Smith and Louis Deacon. Tim Stimpson, one of half a dozen Tigers in the England A squad to supplement seven in the senior shake-up, converted, and did so again when a similar ploy from Kay's tap down ushered Healey through in the 36th minute. Only in first-half injury time did Stimpson line up a penalty at the posts, to put his side 17-0 up after Ludovic Mercier's long-range miss.

Stimpson and Mercier exchanged another penalty apiece in the first 10 minutes of the second half. And during a rare Leicester lull, Mercier scooted round the short side of a scrum for a solo try after 52 minutes.

But Leicester's self-belief, at 10 points ahead going into the last quarter, was breathtaking, although with Healey restored to his favourite position at outside-half, it was a commodity unlikely to be in short supply. Any number of the Cherry and Whites would have cheerfully clouted the cheeky No 10, yet his insistent impudence in running the ball from all areas could not be quelled.

Leicester almost made a hash of flinging the ball around close to their right-hand touchline in the 74th minute. Instead, and to rub Gloucester's noses in it, Steve Booth scooped up possession, motored 20 metres before being halted by Chris Catling's textbook tackle, and offloaded for the supporting West to rumble in a roof-raising try.

Leicester: T Stimpson; S Booth, O Smith (G

Gelderbloom, 8), R Kafer, F Tuilagi; A Healey, H Ellis(J Hamilton, 54); G Rowntree (P Freshwater, 62), DWest (R Cockerill, 74), D Garforth, L Deacon (W Johnson, 8; A Balding, 77), B Kay, L Moody, M Corry, N Back (capt),

Gloucester: D O'Leary; D Albanese, H Paul, R Todd, T Fanolua (C Catling, 67); L Mercier, A Gomarsall (D Yachvili, 77); P Collazo (T Woodman, 41), O Azam (C Fortey, 74), A Deacon (F Pucciariello, 62), R Fidler,M Cornwell, J Boer (capt), J Paramore, J Forrester (K Sewabu, ht).

Referee: T Spreadbury (Somerset).