Dan McKellar's take on Wales flanker Tommy Reffell after Saints scalp

Leicester head coach Dan McKellar lauded his side’s peerless physicality in a pumped-up 26-17 derby victory over Northampton.

The Tigers delivered a much-needed and improved performance to edge their fiercest rivals at Mattioli Woods Welford Road, as 16 points from the boot of Handre Pollard and second-half tries from forwards Francois van Wyk and Hanro Liebenberg secured a second league victory.

While McKellar’s first taste of the East Midlands derby was a positive one, he admitted it was a relief to see his side back to winning ways.

“We had to grind out a win and we did that,” said the Australian.

“You need to win. When you’re one from five, we obviously weren’t happy with that.

“I don’t think it was must-win territory but when it’s a Tigers-Saints derby game, you don’t want to lose.”

“Physically, we were outstanding. We had set-piece dominance and our defensive pressure in the first half in particular was what won us the game.

“It would have been nice to have scored one or two more, but overall we’re really pleased.

“You’ve got to defend well to give Tommy (Reffell) the opportunities that he had and it was good to have him back.

“With the game these days, you can’t be defending for 20 or 30 phases so to have someone like Tommy to be able to force turnover on the ground off the back of what others do, just adds another string to our bow.”

Wales flanker Reffell was named player of the match on a day where the Tigers pack was just too quick and strong for Saints.

Northampton boss Phil Dowson bemoaned indiscipline as a run of three successive wins came to a crashing halt despite tries for George Furbank and a memorable flowing effort for Sam Matavesi.

Dowson, whose side lost Matavesi and Ethan Waller to the sin-bin after the break, said: “We didn’t deal with the breakdown in the first half. Discipline in the second half, going down to 13 men, giving 20 penalties away to their 10, makes it very tricky to get a result.

“We couldn’t quite get in the game. We didn’t do three things back-to-back well.

“We were scrapping away and the score at half-time was 9-3 so playing poorly, we were right in the game.

“But around about 50 minutes, it got away from us.

“That penalty count gives them all the pressure and field position and puts us under some heat.

“In terms of our attacking game, we couldn’t get going forward for long enough to put them under some pressure.

“That anticipation at the breakdown wasn’t good enough and we gave Reffell and (Jasper) Wiese time to get over the ball.

“There were lots of little things that didn’t go our way but we showed great character in terms of dealing with those setbacks.”