Joel Stransky inspired Leicester to an emphatic victory over Richmond at a rain-soaked Welford Road on Saturday.

The South African fly-half contributed 17 points to the Tigers' cause, scoring one of the home side's three tries and kicking three conversions and two penalties.

Joel Stransky: Inspired performance

Leicester coped much better with the atrocious conditions caused by torrential rain and a gale force wind and the home pack's dominance proved decisive.

Richmond enjoyed some early pressure and the Tigers needed some solid defence to keep the visitors at bay.

But Leicester soon seized the initiative and after an Austin Healey break Martin Corry almost forced his way over.

Stransky missed a couple of long-range penalties, one of which struck an upright, as the Leicester pressure mounted. When Richmond were penalised for offside and Leicester kicked for touch it led to the opening try.

From the resulting line-out, Leicester launched a rolling maul and Neil Back plunged over for a try which Stransky converted.

From an almost identical line-out Leicester's forwards grouped and pushed towards the line. The ball popped out and Darren Garforth touched down.

Stransky again converted and also added a penalty before half time to make the score 17-0 in favour of Leicester.

In the second half Richmond came out to make amends but solid Leicester defence kept them out.

Having soaked up the pressure the Tigers regained the upper hand and Stransky kicked a penalty before scoring a try under the posts which he converted to wrap up the scoring.