Cheika oversees first home win as Leicester beat Saints

Leicester Tigers' East Midlands derby win moves them five points clear of Northampton in the Premiership table after four games

Gallagher Premiership

Leicester Tigers (10) 24

Tries: Steward, Cracknell, Chessum Cons: Pollard 3 Pen: Pollard

Northampton Saints (3) 8

Try: Freeman Pen: Smith

Michael Cheika oversaw a memorable first home victory as Leicester Tigers boss as they beat rivals and Premiership title holders Northampton Saints.

Freddie Steward put the hosts ahead with a try after just 150 seconds of a fierce first half that saw Saints’ Sam Graham leave the field on a stretcher and both sides have a player sin-binned.

South Africa fly-half Handre Pollard, who traded penalties with Fin Smith to give Tigers a 10-3 lead at the break, was the third player of the day to be shown a yellow card early in the second half.

One of his first touches on his return to the pitch was to convert an Olly Cracknell try.

Ollie Chessum grabbed Tigers' third try moments after Tom Pearson became the second Saints player to be shown a yellow card in an East Midlands derby which produced only a consolation try for the champions from Tommy Freeman at the death.

Cheika was back at the Tigers helm for the visit of their regional rivals, having missed the 5 October win at Newcastle as he served a one-match ban for "disrespecting a match-day doctor".

The two teams made a number of changes and ushered back international stars for the derby, with Saints bringing Scotland’s Elliot Millar Mills and Fijian Temo Mayanavanua into the tight five while Tigers called on their Argentine captain Julian Montoya and two-time World Cup winning fly-half Pollard for the first time this season.

Pollard was quick to make an early impression as he slotted a conversion from wide on the left after Steward gave the hosts the ideal start with a try inside three minutes.

Saints had a Graham try ruled out in response soon after, and the knock-on as the number eight reached over the line was his last major involvement as he was carried off the field on a stretcher minutes later with a knee injury after being tackled by Tommy Reffell.

Tigers' Wales international was sin-binned for the hit, but Saints failed to make their numerical advantage count as they had a second try ruled out by the television match official (TMO) – with George Furbank fumbling the ball forward as he set Freeman up to race over the line – before Pollard added to Leicester’s lead with a penalty.

And when Saints were down to 14 men themselves, having had Curtis Langdon sent to the bin for 10 minutes for a high hit on Harry Wells, Fin Smith landed the visitors' first points of the game with a penalty.

Boos rang around Mattioli Woods Welford Road when Pollard was next to be shown a yellow card for his high tackle on Furbank, but the instrumental playmaker was back in time to boot Tigers further ahead after Cracknell crossed under the posts and punished Saints for a succession of penalties close to their line.

Saints’ night was effectively summed up in two cruel minutes midway through the second half in which Pearson was adjudged to be held up over the line by the TMO, before then becoming the fourth player to be shown a yellow card when he failed to release Joseph Woodward after he broke away on the counter attack.

Within moments, Chessum had crashed over for Tigers' third try of an ultimately convincing derby victory in which Saints could only eke a consolation with the last play of the game from Freeman.

'Crowd was a weapon for Tigers' - reaction

Leicester Tigers head coach Michael Cheika told BBC Radio Leicester:

"We really wanted to try to get our crowd into the game early, so to score the try early on helped us get the crowd into the game because that is a weapon for you and you should use it. I don't think we used t well enough against Bath in the first [home] game.

"I just thought we were pretty gritty, we aimed up with our physicality, our work-rate, our effort, our scramble defence.

"There was a lot around the physical nature of the game and a little bit about trying to combine the emotion of the derby, which we want to have but we want to have it under control, and I thought we did that pretty well."

Northampton Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson told BBC Radio Northampton:

"It was tough, we were frustrated by a very good Leicester defence and we didn't manage to convert the pressure we did create.

"We didn't get the ball over the line twice, and three times were held up, so, yeah, it was frustrating.

"We have to be better in those spaces and we will go away and look at that and make sure that we are better in converting pressure to points."

Leicester Tigers: Steward; Watson, Kelly, Woodward, Hassell-Collins; Pollard, Van Poortvliet; Smith, Montoya, Heyes; Wells, Chessum; Liebenberg, Reffell, Cracknell.

Replacements: Clare, Cronin, Cole, Joussain, Ilione, Youngs, Shillcock, Wand.

Sin-bin: Reffell (13), Pollard (44).

Northampton Saints: Furbank; Ramm, Litchfield, Hutchinson, Freeman; F Smith, McParland; Iyogun, Langdon, Millar Mills; Mayanavanua, Munga; Kemeny, Scott-Young, Graham.

Replacements: R Smith, West, Davison, Thornbury, Pearson, Pollock, Garside, Sleightholme.

Sin-bin: Langdon (31), Pearson (59)

Referee: Anthony Woodthorpe.