The director of rugby at Wasps, Nigel Melville, saw his reigning champions steam-rollered by Leicester on Saturday and then tipped the Tigers to win the title.

Deprived of the England captain, Lawrence Dallaglio, the defending champions looked sluggish as Leicester produced a fine performance to win the match 45-21

Last year's winners have turned into this year's losers

Leicester's Michael Horrock scored the first try and shortly after half-time the scrum-half, Austin Healey, powered over for the second.

Two more tries followed in the second half as Wasps showed little sign of ending their losing streak.

After the match, Melville said: "We missed too many tackles. They could have scored more tries if they had used their possession.

"We are in the basement of the first division, but we have a flood of international players either coming back or about to return.

"I think Leicester stand a good chance of taking over from us as champions, despite their big six-point deficit on Newcastle and Saracens."

The Leicester coach, Bob Dwyer, was able to relax after the victory, but he revealed that he had been plagued with injury problems before the match.

"Four players reported in with problems -- the entire back row, plus Joel Stransky.

"I had to ring the second team bus as it was going down the motorway to get Paul Gustard off the vehicle, into a service station and into a cab on the way back to Leicester," he said.

Black day for Irish

The Ireland coach, Brian Ashton, watched gloomily from the stands as Richmond boosted their European qualification hopes by beating London Irish 45-14 at Sunbury.

The WRU will relish Richmond's victory

Despite the nine Irish internationals on the field, Richmond scored six tries, including two for the 21-year-old wing Dominic Chapman.

The win spells good news for Wales. Scott and Craig Quinnell, in particular, are back on form, with Scott crashing over for Richmond's third try on the half-hour.

Both players missed Wales' pre-Christmas internationals against Tonga and New Zealand but on this form are in contention for places in the Five Nations warm-up against Italy on February 7.

Centre Allan Bateman and scrum-half Andy Moore also scored tries to add to the match's Welsh flavour, whilst the replacement full-back Earl Va'a completed the scoring with an injury-time try.

Ashton was left to console himself with the fact that, in all probability, only a handful of the Irish internationals involved in the match will make the start of the Five Nations campaign.

Even before half-time the contest was over when Richmond's fly-half Adrian Davies kicked two of his three penalties to add to the first-half scores from Chapman, Bateman and Scott Quinnell.

Three penalties from Niall Woods were all the Irish could muster, before the left wing went over for a 75th minute try to give Irish fans at least one touchdown to cheer.

But by then Chapman had already crossed the line for a second time, finishing off the move which began with a Davies break and continued with Bateman's perfectly-judged scoring pass.

Richmond's last two tries came in the final moments to underline their superiority and while Irish face relegation, their local London rivals can look forward to the possibility of a top-four League finish.

Neath on course for semis

In Wales, Neath look set to reach the semi-finals of the WRU Challenge Trophy after their fourth win in five outings against Cordoba.

The Welsh All Blacks' 37-7 triumph over the Argentinians included five tries, with two from Wales A wing Adam Palfrey, and earned them an invaluable bonus point.

Cardiff still top the table

While Cardiff still top the pool with 16 points, Neath are now only one point behind them in second place, but are two points clear of Newport in third place.

Having beaten Spain earlier in the week, Neath now face Rugby Canada on Tuesday, knowing that another victory should be good enough to take them into the knockout phase of the tournament.

Cordoba were rocked at the start as Neath raced into a 17-0 lead.

The Argentinians' only response was a try by the flanker Sebastian Irazoqui, which the outside-half, Jose Luna, converted.

Neath added three more tries after the break and the outside-half, Chris John, boosted his personal tally to 12 points with three conversions and two penalties.

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