Harry Wells believes Leicester Tigers performances are showing where progress is being made within the squad.

After conceding a first-minute converted try at home to London Irish on Friday, Tigers responded to lead 33-18 before wrapping up the win to move on to 28 points from 12 rounds of Gallagher Premiership action.

“It wasn’t pretty, but it’s a win,” said Wells, who started in the back row and then moved to lock when Tomas Lavanini suffered an injury just before half-time, with Ollie Chessum added to the forward pack.

“After the first 20, we would have gone away in the past and ended up losing, but we kept working hard and found a real steel in us. We take the lessons from that and will be better for it.

“Resilience is the key word. It is easy to hide and look for excuses but we’re not about that. We have pride in what we do, we stick to our systems and teams are finding it tough against us.”

Wells, who earlier this season passed 100 appearances for the club since graduating from the Tigers Academy, added: “We’re a team that is looking up. We are making progress and people are starting to notice the changes that Steve [Borthwick] is putting into place.

“We are looking to take that forward and go on this journey. We are just at the beginning of it, there is a lot more to come from us.”

Tigers are back in action on Saturday with a trip to Gloucester Rugby in Round 13 of the Gallagher Premiership campaign.