Extremely painful evening for Saints as Tigers delight in derby-day success

The black, green and gold were left to reflect on a frustrating 80 minutes that included a potentially severe injury for Sam Graham, who had been harshly denied a try before he was injured.

Saints thought they had scored on five separate occasions before Tommy Freeman was eventually awarded a try with the clock in the red.

Fin Smith, who had got Saints on the board with a penalty three minutes before the break, missed the conversion as the home fans thrived on schadenfreude.

Both sides were hit by two yellow cards during the match, but it was Tigers who dealt with the absences better as they used their scrum as a solid platform for success.

For Saints, there really was little to shout about on a truly painful evening as they suffered their second defeat in two Gallagher Premiership away matches this season, following the opening-night loss at Bath.

Saints had been penned in from the kick-off after making their way up the M1, with Tigers securing two penalties that heaped the pressure on.

The home side turned down a shot at goal to tap and go, with Freddie Steward finding his way to the try line in the left corner.

Handre Pollard, making his return from international duty, converted and Saints were seven points down inside the opening four minutes.

Saints tried to mount a response and they looked to have done so when Graham stretched out an arm to try to score, but referee Anthony Woodthorpe went to the TMO and the No.8 was deemed to have knocked on.

It was to be a nightmare couple of minutes for Saints and Graham as he was soon stretchered off following an off-feet challenge from Tommy Reffell.

The replay could not be shown on the big screen due to the severity of the injury, meaning TMO Andrew Jack had to effectively make the decision to sin bin Reffell for the referee.

Henry Pollock was brought on in Graham's place and Saints were soon seeing another try ruled out, this time for a knock-on from George Furbank in the build-up to Freeman beating his man and dotting down. It looked like potentially another harsh call as Steward appeared to knock the ball on before Furbank, but Saints were the ones left smarting again.

Tigers were bossing the scrum battle and they won their second penalty from the set piece to put the pressure back on a Saints side who would have felt nothing was going their way on derby day.

Pollard soon added three points to the tally after Saints were penalised inside their own 22, meaning the hosts led by 10 points as Reffell returned to the field.

Saints were applying plenty of pressure but the Tigers defence was holding firm, with Reffell winning a breakdown penalty to take the heat off.

And Saints were down to 14 men seven minutes before the break as Curtis Langdon was sin-binned for a high tackle on Harry Wells.

Graham was given a nice round of applause from the terrace as he headed back to the Saints bench on crutches, while his team were trying to see out the half on the field.

The away side did manage to stand tall and it was they who notched the final points of the half as Smith slotted a penalty to get his team on the board 37 minutes into the match.

The second half started with another yellow card as Pollard was sin-binned for head-on-head contact with Furbank. Pollard apologised as he left the field.

Saints then had to do some defending as Tigers camped on the away line before eventually knocking on.

But Leicester just kept coming and after a series of penalties were given away by Saints, the hosts forced their way through as Olly Cracknell scored under the posts.

Pollard returned from the sin bin to add the conversion and Saints were facing a long road back at 14 points down with 25 minutes to go.

They had hoped they’d cut the deficit when Tom Pearson powered towards the line but after reviewing the incident, the referee decided he had been held up over the line.

Pearson was soon heading to the sin bin as he killed a Tigers breakaway, and the home side took immediate advantage as Ollie Chessum dived over to score his side's third try.

Pollard converted to make it 24-3 and the home fans were jubilant.

Saints just could not get anything going, no matter how hard they tried, and they were soon held up over the line again as Dan Cole took the congratulations from his Tigers team-mates.

The rain poured down to add to the pain as a Jake Garside run down the left ended with another Saints knock-on as they tried to gather the ball at the breakdown.

It just wasn't going to be their day as the lively Garside tried to take a ball that was well above his head out wide but it went into touch, to the delight of the home fans on the terrace.

Saints were denied again soon after as the words ‘no try’ went up on the screen for the fifth time of a scarcely believable encounter.

But a try did finally arrive when Freeman dived over. The TMO took his customary look at it but it was eventually deemed fair before Smith sent the conversion to the left of the posts, bringing a big cheer from the home fans as they revelled in Saints’ misery.

Leicester Tigers: Steward; Watson, Kelly (Wand 68), Woodward, Hassell-Collins; Pollard, van Poortvliet (Youngs 65); Smith (Cronin 63), Montoya (c) (Clare 55), Heyes (Cole 58); Wells, Chessum, Liebenberg, Reffell (Ilione 68), Cracknell.

Saints: Furbank (c) (Sleightholme 48); Ramm, Litchfield (Garside 73), Hutchinson, Freeman; F Smith, McParland; Iyogun (West 55), C Langdon (R Smith 55), Millar Mills (Davison 40); Mayanavanua (Thornbury 70), Munga; Kemeny, Scott-Young (Pearson 55), Graham (Pollock 13).

Referee: Anthony Woodthorpe