Premiership: Newcastle 13-14 Leicester

Mike Fitzgerald scored his first Premiership try for Leicester since joining the club in 2015

Leicester edged a close encounter with Newcastle at Kingston Park as they secured their second win of the season.

Newcastle took an early 10-0 lead courtesy of Juan Pablo Socino's finish and a Mike Delany penalty.

But Mike Fitzgerald scored his first Premiership try and Freddie Burns slotted three penalties either side of the break to put the Tigers ahead.

Joel Hodgson made it a one-point game with 10 to play but missed a late drop-goal as Leicester held on for victory.

Both teams came into the game with one win from their opening two matches, with Leicester looking to make amends for their 22-34 loss to Wasps last weekend.

In a game full of handling errors and lacking in quality, Newcastle raced into the lead as Tigers struggled at the breakdown.

But Richard Cockerill's side turned it around to trail by just two points at the break before going ahead for the first time 10 minutes into the second period courtesy of Burns' boot.

Newcastle did not give up and, after the clock had turned red, they were awarded a scrum following a stoppage for a head injury suffered by Burns.

The ball was fired to Hodgson in the pocket but the substitute butchered his drop-goal attempt and Leicester scraped a messy four points.

Newcastle director of rugby Dean Richards: "The boys decided to go for the drop goal and I have no problems with that.

"We had our chances and we didn't take them, it's as simple as that and that's our fault - not the referee's.

"We took a bit of a tanking in the second half but came back and probably should have won in the end which is really frustrating.

"However, I am delighted at the way we have turned it around after the Bath game. If you look at where we were at this stage last season we were really struggling, but that's not the case now."

Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill: "We're very lucky to get away with a win and we're happy to take the four points.

"We have to play smarter. There were times in the second half when we didn't control things well.

"We're encouraging the players to play more with the ball in hand, but we're making a lot of errors and making some poor decisions.

"We have a lot of things to fix and while we won, the players are disappointed. We're just not looking after the ball well enough and we have to correct that very quickly."

Newcastle: Hammersley; Goneva, Waldouck, Socino, Sinoti; Delany, Takulua; Lockwood, Lawson, Welsh, Green, Olmstead, Wilson, Welch (capt), Hogg.

Replacements: Sowrey, Vickers, Ryan, Witty, Temm, Young, Hodgson, Agulla.

Leicester: Tait (capt); Veainu, Betham, Williams, Pietersen; Burns, B. Youngs; Genge, McGuigan, Cole, Fitzgerald, Kitchener, Williams, O'Connor, Hamilton.

Replacements: T. Youngs, Ayerza, Bateman, Slater, Evans, Kitto, Roberts, Thompstone.

Referee: JP Doyle.

Attendance: 6,570.