The Tigers have struggled for form in English Premiership, having been bit by injuries and International call-ups but they got off to a flyer in northern Italy, surging into a 13 v 0 lead thanks to a pair of quick-fire penalties from the boot of Toby Flood and a try from Tom Croft.

Richard Cockerill's men continued to threaten in attack and they clinched a second try shortly before the 25-minutes after Alesana Tuilagi took a short-ball off Flood and crashed over. The England fly-half dissected the posts to bring the scores to 20-0 but Aironi quickly hit-back with a penalty.

They continued their resurgence with a second Luciano Orquera penalty on 33 minutes to bring the scores to 20-6 at the break.

Flood struck the uprights within two minutes of the restart but he made no mistake three minutes later to stretch Leicester's lead to 23-6.

Orquera quickly struck-back with his third penalty and following a sustained period of pressure he slotted another on 68 minutes to make it 23-12.

That appeared to stir the Tigers life but they could not break Aironi's unforgiving defence until it was too late.

Following some strong carrying by Thomas Waldrom, the visitors worked the overlap and Leicester captain Geordan Murphy threw a pin-point miss pass to fellow Irishman Niall Morris for a touchdown in the corner.