Leicester Tigers centre Manu Tuilagi faces a spell on the sidelines after suffering a knee strain in Sunday’s Aviva Premiership opener.

Tuilagi recovered from long-term injury in time to start the final warm-up fixture against the Ospreys and then opening game of the campaign against Bath, but he strained the meniscus in his left knee during the match. He will have surgery and recovery time is estimated at 12 weeks.

“This is not the knee that Manu injured last season and this is not a major injury in the context of what kept him out for the first half of this year,” said Tigers head coach Matt O’Connor.

“Manu has worked really hard with the medical and conditioning teams to come back from long-term injury and was starting to find his feet again on the pitch, but he’s just been very unlucky with this one.

“It was an innocuous bump, a freak incident in the game. On closer inspection there is some damage to the meniscus which needs to be addressed. We look forward to having him back at the end of his recovery period.”