Flood takes full advantage as Worcester remain rooted to the bottom

Leicester ace Flood kicked 24 points, including conversions of all three Tigers tries by Jeremy Staunton, Ben Youngs and James Grindal, in a 39-18 success at Sixways.

It means Worcester remain two points adrift of 11th-placed Leeds with just five games left, starting with a Good Friday trip to face fellow strugglers Sale Sharks.

"I felt the final scoreline hurt us, but Leicester were more clinical –- they had three try-scoring chances and took them," said Ruddock. "They capitalised on our ill-discipline. For 60 minutes, there was nothing really in it and I thought we played all the rugby in the first half.

"We really forced Leicester to ask a lot of themselves and we felt confident at half-time, but they turned the screw in the end and punished us.

"They put a lot of pressure on our lineout, which hurt us, and we also came up against our usual stumbling block of giving away too many penalties.

"We put pressure on ourselves with the amount of penalties we gave away. But there is plenty of heart and spirit in the team, and we have got to dust ourselves down for Friday night."

While Worcester face a scramble to stay up and secure a seventh successive season in English rugby's top flight, reigning Premiership champions Leicester are racing towards securing a title play-off place - and a priceless home draw.

They remain top of the table, with three of their last four league games at home, suggesting that Premiership silverware is once again within grasp.

It was Leicester's biggest Premiership away win since they crushed Harlequins 42-13 at the Twickenham Stoop in January, 2008.

"It was a good win," said Tigers head coach Richard Cockerill.

"I thought we were a bit rusty at times, but we rode the storm pretty well.

"We were probably a bit fortunate to be up at half-time. Worcester, though, have got some good players and they are not a bad side."

Cockerill played a straight bat to talk of another possible Tigers triumph via the play-offs, adding: "There is still a fair bit to go.

"We are another step in the right direction. We don't want to limp to the line – we want to finish well and try to take some momentum on from that.

"Maybe the scoreline flattered us a little bit, but the way we kept the pressure on them was really good."