WORCESTER Warriors' maul defence issues were exposed bare for all to see as Leicester Tigers powered to a 41-24 victory at Welford Road on Saturday afternoon.

Four of Tigers' five tries were scored from driving mauls and both hooker Julian Montaya and number eight Jasper Wiese helped themselves to a brace each as Leicester sealed a bonus-point win.

Worcester managed three tries of their own in the second-half as Richard Palframan, Oli Morris and Perry Humphreys dotted down but they weren't enough to celebrate Chris Pennell's 250th Worcester appearance with a win and instead took a step back from previous encouraging performances.

Worcester stay in eleventh but are now just a single point ahead of Gloucester, who secured two points away at London Irish.

IT was a pragmatic start to the game by both sides as they both wrestled to get a foothold in the match but Tigers took the lead after eight minutes when Zack Henry scored a penalty but Duncan Weir responded ten minutes later to level scores.

Hooker Julian Montoya, on his first Leicester start, finally got the first try of the afternoon on 23 minutes as he profited from a dominant driving maul from a close range lineout.

Henry added another three-pointer from the tee to extend the lead back to 10 before Worcester lost Weir to an injury just before the half-hour mark, with Jamie Shillcock coming on in his place.

A third successful kick of the afternoon from Henry gave Tigers a 13-3 lead at the half-time interval.

It was a slow start to the second-half and it was another weekend with a man sent to the bin, this time Graham Kitchener was yellow carded for offside right on the try-line and the resulting penalty went to the corner and Montoya scored his second from yet another driving maul effort.

Down to 14 Warriors were in trouble and Tigers took full advantage as the driving maul again proved too much for the Worcester pack to handle, this time Jasper Wiese crashing over to make it 27-3 after 55 minutes.

Richard Palframan came off the bench moments later and reduced the deficit to 17 with his try and Shillcock's conversion but Tigers' replacement hooker Tom Youngs helped himself to a score from close range to secure Leicester the bonus point.

Oli Morris intercepted a pass with 11 minutes on the clock to go under the posts from 50 metres but the maul again proved decisive as Wiese got his second to make it 41-17 with seven minutes to play.

Perry Humphreys went over in the corner as the visitors finished with a flurry but it had no baring on the result as it finsihed 41-24.