Harlequins Director of Rugby Conor O'Shea

LV=Cup Harlequins 9 Leicester 19

Rory Clegg was Harlequins’ only points scorer at The Stoop on Saturday as the Premiership leaders fell to a defeat by Leicester Tigers in the LV= Cup.

The Londoners have now suffered their fourth defeat in six games as they dropped out of the Heineken Cup last weekend.

The visitors, who were also knocked out of the European competition last weekend, scored three tries while Quins could only respond with three penalty kicks which fell to the boot of Clegg.

Both teams were somewhat depleted ahead of the fixture due to players having been called up for international duty ahead of the start of the RBS Six Nations next Saturday.

However, the Tigers ensured that this had little effect on their performance as they dominated Quins from the start with an Andy Forsyth opening try as he out-sprinted the defence to go in under the posts for any easy seven point lead thanks to a George Ford conversion.

Quins applied the pressure courtesy of a Clegg chip gathered by flanker Luke Wallace which resulted in being awarded a penalty in their own 22 after a breakdown infringement.

Clegg duly landed his penalty to bring the score to 7-3 with a quarter of the match still to be played.

Leicester were unfazed by strong runs from Tom Casson and Rob Buchanan and continued to look dangerous in attack going into the break the stronger side.

Quins started the second half positively with another penalty from Clegg who closed the gap to just one point as their pack earned the penalty from a scrum just outside the 22.

Leicester responded with a 55 minute try as Alex Lewington grubbered down the wing before running around Quins full back Ross Chisholm and collecting his own kick to touch down in the corner.

Ford was unable to convert the tricky kick as Clegg took another three points by way of penalty to stay in reaching distance of a comeback.

But Tigers rounded off their dominant performance as Ben Pienaar steamrollered over the line in the 68th minute with Quins unable to quell his momentum.

Quins failed to respond as the final whistle approached, counting down to another disappointing defeat.