Tigers rip up Irish

Leicester continued their march towards the Heineken European Cup quarter-finals by destroying Leinster.

The Tigers hammered the Irish provincial champions to avenge their narrow defeat in Dublin a fortnight ago.

It was Leicester's third win in four games and the Pool A winners will probably be decided by the crunch match with Toulouse at Welford Road next week.

That promises to be a real humdinger after Leicester's astonishing victory in Toulouse last weekend.

Leicester destroyed Leinster with a fantastic second-half performance which brought five tries and 32 points.

And in the middle of it all was Fijian Sevens superstar Waisale Serevi who replaced injured full back Michael Horak in the 27th minute.

When South African fly half Joel Stransky went off injured in the 35th minute, Serevi moved to half back and turned in a fabulous performance.

With the second half only five minutes old he created a try for winger Tim Barlow and then kicked a penalty to put the Tigers 23-7 ahead.

A penalty by Leinster fly half Alan McGowan made it 23-10.

Then man-of-the-match Austin Healey, the England and Lions scrum half, split the visitors defence with a 60-metre run.

He knocked on as he scored but the referee missed it. Severi kicked the conversion.

There were further tries from Niall Malone and replacements Graham Roundtree and Will Greenwood.

Winger Denis Hickey replied for the Irish in the last ten minutes.

Three Stransky penalties, a John McWeeney try and Severi penalty put Leicester in the first-half driving seat.

And it was all capped off by Healey's left-footed drop goal, the first by a Leicester scrum half for 23 years.

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