In a first home game since March 2, Tigers ran in five tries in a 35-16 win over London Wasps which guaranteed a place in the Aviva Premiership semi-finals with two rounds still to play.
Director of rugby Richard Cockerill said: “We’ve been away from home for a long time and it is always great to be at home with our home support.
“It’s a good win after the emotional rollercoaster of the last couple of weeks. We’ll take that and it keeps us in a good position to get a home semi-final.
“There is always a danger you might not bring as much intensity after what we’ve been through in the last couple of weeks, but we did what we needed to do and the job was done after 50 minutes.
"Everybody was just happy to get back to Welford Road after Toulon and you always want to be bounce back from any disappointment as quickly as you can. Toulon was one of the most physical games we’ve had in the last few years so training was light this week and it was about freshening everybody up ready to play.
“We just wanted to play – we scored some good tries and probably left a few more out there but we scored five tries to one and we were able to get some good game-time for guys off the bench too, which is important.”
Tom Croft, Geoff Parling and Tom Youngs were ruled out of the game but Cockerill said all were withdrawn as precautions.
Tigers, who go to Bath Rugby next Saturday and then host London Irish at Welford Road on Saturday, May 4, require three points to be certain of a home game in the semi-finals on the weekend of May 11/12.
