The Prem
Leicester Tigers (31) 62
Tries: Blamire 2, Hamer-Webb 5, Perese, Radwan 2 Cons: Searle 3, Bailey 3
Newcastle Red Bulls (3) 3
Pen: Healy
Gabriel Hamer-Webb scored five tries as Leicester Tigers crushed an ill-disciplined and desperately outclassed Newcastle Red Bulls in The Prem.
Newcastle already had Elliott Obatoyinbo in the sin-bin when Jamie Blamire put the hosts ahead in the second minute, and the visitors were down to 13 men soon after when Ollie Leatherbarrow was shown a 20-minute red card for a reckless challenge.
Another Blamire score against his former side was followed by a first-half hat-trick from Hamer-Webb that put the East Midlands side 31-3 up at the break.
Izaia Perese added to the advantage after the break before Hamer-Webb grabbed a further two tries and Adam Radwan got among the scoring spree with a double of his own to complete the romping home victory.
And it was a win that was made all the sweeter for Tigers when fit-again England lock George Martin came off the bench for his first appearance in 14 months after a horror run of injury setbacks.
Leicester are third in the table and eight points clear of fifth-placed Bristol.
- Northampton snatch dramatic late win at Exeter
While Leicester were forced into a late reshuffle with Hanro Liebenberg dropping out, to be replaced by Olly Cracknell in the starting XV, they were never troubled by the league's bottom side.
There was less than a minute on the clock when Obatoyinbo was shown a yellow card for a deliberate knock on, and Tigers took immediate advantage against the 14 men that remained with Blamire going over.
Ben Healy landed a penalty in response, but it quickly got worse for Newcastle when Leatherbarrow was sent off for shot on an opponent's knee.
There was a momentary reprieve when Cracknell had a try overturned by the television match official, but three tries in six minutes from Blamire and Hamer-Webb – who grabbed two – quickly earned the hosts a try-scoring bonus point.
Hamer-Webb completed his treble before the break then, after linking up with Perese to send the Australian over for the first score of a more subdued second half, the Wales international went over twice more in a scintillating display.
Radwan piled on more misery on the visitors with a brace of tries in the final 10 minutes against his former club.
Leicester Tigers head coach Geoff Parling told BBC Radio Leicester:
"I'm really pleased, I thought we did some good stuff up front and obviously shifted the ball well.
"There was one period where I thought, did we get a little bit loose? But then we went back to doing our basics really well.
"The message during the week has been our basics and I thought in general we did it well and it was great to get some guys some good gametime off the bench and we saw some guys in different positions.
On Martin's return: He has worked diligently. He is an avid learner, and we were very pleased to get him back out on the pitch today. We knew we wanted to limit his game to around 20 minutes, just to ease him in but I’m really pleased to have him with us.”
Newcastle Red Bulls interim head coach Stephen Jones told BBC Radio Newcastle:
"It is incredibly difficult when you go down to 13. Obviously, having the red card early doors away from home against a good side like Leicester made it difficult for us.
"It knocked us out of sync, and there is huge disappointment in the changing room because we wanted to give a better account of ourselves.
"But the reality of it is that in six days' time we have a game to get ready for against Bristol.
"We have a bit of work to do, but we'll take it on the chin and go work hard."
Leicester Tigers: Steward; Radwan, Wand, Bailey, Hamer-Webb; Searle, Van Poortvliet; Smith, Blamire, Heyes; Henderson, Chessum, Moro, Watson, Cracknell.
Replacements: Clare, Haffar, Hurd, Martin, Wells, Whiteley, Perese, Hassell-Collins.
Newcastle Red Bulls: Hodge; Wade, Hearle, Beeckmans, Obatoyinbo; Healy, Elliott; Rewcastle, Fletcher, Palframan, Hodgson, Scott, Gordon, Christie, Leatherbarrow.
Replacements: Adejimi, Brocklebank, McCallum, Clarke, Parsons, Benitez Cruz, Connon, Lee-Warner.
Sin-bin: Obatoyinbo (1) ; Red card: Leatherbarrow (7)
Referee: Joe James.
