George Ford hailed Manu Tuilagi in the wake of Leicester Tigers’ 49-33 victory over Newcastle Falcons, saluting an intelligent and incisive backline performance that brought glimpses of the centre’s game-breaking best.

Five days after Leicester disposed of Matt O’Connor and installed Geordan Murphy as interim head coach, they bounced back from an insipid loss to Exeter Chiefs with a bonus-point win.

Ford stretched over with just 107 seconds on the clock and finished with a personal haul of 29 points thanks to an additional three conversions and six penalties.

Newcastle, with Vereniki Goneva a constant threat, scored five tries of their own on an afternoon to make defence coaches wince. However, Ford’s kicking scuppered any chance of another Welford Road win for Dean Richards’ Falcons.

Reprising the midfield partnership that swept Bath to the 2015 Premiership final, Ford also dovetailed beautifully with inside centre Kyle Eastmond. When the latter limped off with a tight calf on the half-hour, Leicester were 35-19 already ahead.

Ford beat nine defenders with ball in hand and ended up with 29 points credit: CameraSport

All five of Leicester’s tries were scored by backs, with wings Jonny May (two) and Adam Thompstone sharing three of them. But Tuilagi’s – a 50-metre run from a first-phase strike move that saw him barrel past two defenders – was the pick.

“We believe in ourselves as players, we believe in ourselves as a backline,” Ford said afterwards. “We want to get the ball, we want to break teams down in that phase, not three phases later.

“People like Manu and Kyle are brilliant decision makers. Manu is world-class in the lines he runs and unbelievably hard to stop. You could see today [what happens] if you put him a bit of space or give him a soft shoulder or a one on one.

“It’s exactly what he need to do – get him in those positions. We worked hard on that all week. We’ve got to do our bit on the inside, at 10 and 12, Kyle and I, to give Manu, Telusa [Veianu], Jonny the space they need.”

Unsurprisingly given Tuilagi’s popularity and recent injury woes, his try was met with delighted celebrations. Ford revealed that a turbulent week in the East Midlands had prompted Murphy and Leicester’s playmakers to bring more “clarity” to preparations. Tuilagi certainly benefitted, as Ford explained.

Manu Tuilagi dives over to cap a 50-metre run credit: Getty Images

“We’ve probably been paying him a bit of a disservice to be honest, the way we’ve been playing him – telling him to run into brick walls all the time.

“Exploiting space is what we as players and Geordie want, because if you want to bring the best out of players like Manu, who is one of the most powerful line-runners in the world and one of the most difficult to tackle.

“You’ve got to put him in space and put him in on-on-one situations or even put him through holes in the defence on soft shoulders.

“So, it’s simplifying things, becoming better at executing things, running straighter, running good lines and holding guys up on the inside so Manu gets that half a hole. As you saw today, he’s pretty lethal when we get that right.”

How the Ford-Eastmond axis laid on Tuilagi’s try

Manu Tuilagi’s try comes from a Leicester scrum close to the halfway line. First, watch the strike-move the hosts ran in its entirety:

This may look like a simple midfield carry, but there are plenty of subtleties that go into helping Tigers’ centre find – in Ford’s words – the “soft shoulder” that Tuilagi burst through. Here, we take a look at the line-break stage by stage.

First, as the set piece collapses and referee Matthew Carleys asks Leicester to use it, scrum-half Ben Youngs backs away and is found by a quick pass from the base by Sione Kalamafoni.

In turn, Youngs fizzes the ball away. But the pass goes across Ford to first-receiver Eastmond. Meanwhile, Ford backs around his inside centre towards the near touchline.

As for Newcastle’s defence, note that blindside wing Vereniki Goneva starts tracking play at this point. However, scrum-half Sonatane Takulua, fly-half Toby Flood and inside centre Josh Matavesi are the players that Tigers are trying to manipulate:

Manu

Eastmond is instrumental. He takes the ball flat, straightens his running line and squares up his shoulders. This draws Flood, and a slight delay allows Ford to arc around with a line that will take him behind Tuilagi.

Eastmond has two available passes. The ‘A’ option, to Ford, will bring in opposite wing Jonny May and attack the right shoulder of Newcastle outside centre Chris Harris. The B option unleashes Tuilagi.

Matavesi has to keep both of these possible passes in mind. Because of that, he tries to slow down and stay on his toes to react to Eastmond. But Eastmond’s body language is deceptive and the pass comes so late:

Manu

Tuilagi’s line is extremely good too, he almost aims at Flood’s right shoulder – and therefore directly between Matavesi and Takulua as Flood engages Eastmond:

Manu

As Eastmond releases, a close-up shows us that Ford has sold the move by keeping his hands up. Matavesi’s weight seems to be on his heels and Takulua is already pushing back towards his own try-line. Neither are in a strong position:

Manu

Here is the “soft shoulder”, or “half a hole”, that Ford was talking about. Because of Matavesi’s indecision – encouraged by the gain-line combination of Eastmond and Ford – Tuilagi can burst past an arm-tackle of an unbalanced defender:

Manu

Despite back-pedalling, Takulua manages to adopt a decent tackle position beyond that:

Manu

Even so, with Ford diligently readjusting his line to support the break, the defender can only grab Tuilagi’s left leg. Tuilagi plants his right…

Manu

…and shakes off Takulua:

Manu

Once Tuilagi accelerates into open space, Ford arrives on his left shoulder. But Tuilagi does not need him, and shows impressive speed to out-strip the scrambling Falcons duo of Goneva and Simon Hammersley:

Manu

As Ford says, Tuilagi is a devastating weapon when launched towards space rather than into “brick walls”. Another first-half carry led to a big gain-line win for Tigers, a Newcastle infringement and three points from the tee.

Tuilagi is desperate to stay fit and string together a number of effective, influential matches for Leicester. Do that, and Jones will ponder an England call-up. For now, it was just heart-warming to see that grin again.