Joel Stransky led Leicester back to the top of the Premiership with an immaculate display at struggling West Hartlepool.

The Tigers needed a 10-point winning margin at Victoria Park to overtake Bath on points difference and Stransky provided the spark.

The South African legend scored 22 points and even found himself sin-binned in an absorbing bottom-against-top contest.

Leicester got off to a flying start when Stransky kicked a 30-metre penalty in the third minute.

However, West levelled when their number 10 Jon Benson kicked an easy penalty in the 14th minute.

England scrum-half Austin Healey went over the West line in the 16th minute, but the score was disallowed because a team-mate had a foot in touch.

But Leicester were not to be denied and full-back Geordan Murphy sliced his way through the West defence for the first try in the 21st minute.

Stransky converted and added a penalty to give the Tigers a 13-3 advantage.

Penalty try

Little was seen of West as an attacking force, but they replied when Emmet Farrell broke clear and chipped the ball over the line.

The full-back was pushed to the ground by Leicester number eight Paul Gustard which resulted in referee Chris Rees awarding a penalty try.

Neil Back was desperately unlucky not to be awarded a try in the 32nd minute, but Leicester soon struck when Stransky spotted a huge gap down the left to sprint clear to score in the corner.

His superb conversion from the touchline made it 20-10 and two minutes after the interval he was the inspiration behind the Tigers' third try.

The former Springbok star made a brilliant midfield break which led to Leon Lloyd putting Murphy in for his second try.

West hit back

West looked down and out but hit back straight away and it needed a magnificent try-saving tackle from that man Stransky to stop Jamie Connolly from scoring.

Stransky though, was penalised and sent to the sin-bin for killing the ball and from the resulting line-out a metre from the Tigers' line, West scrum-half Tu Nu'uali'itia dived over for an unconverted try.

West though were unable to take advantage of the man advantage and Leicester even added to their tally in Stransky's absence with a Murphy penalty.