And so it was that the Tiggers left Kingston Park with their tails between their legs for a fourth successive year thanks to an early try from the unlikeliest of sources and some absolutely heroic defensive work.

The Master shook up his side for last night's game, bringing in Hall Charlton and Matt Thompson as well as John Rudd, while Adam Balding missed his first game in ages. We've seen some sterling performances recently by the man who needs Touchy's golf cart to get round the pitch come the 50^th minute, but Phil Dowson at number 8 and indeed the three previously mentioned didn't let us down.

The result was a seventh win in eight games, and a fourth successive home win against the Tiggers, but more importantly more proof that the Falcons are right on the corner now and looking ready to turn it, bouncing back well after last week's defeat.

The initial few minutes saw the Falcons on the attack but once Leicester got a foothold the home crowd looked on in horror at a succession of aimless kicks from our backs. Hadn't we got this out of our system in recent months? I can't remember the last time I saw so many kicks, from both teams, fail to bounce before hitting touch too.

It was a running attack which brought our try after a quarter of an hour, with a three-man overlap on the right and Tane Tu'ipulotu the man who dived over, scoring his first try in a black shirt. At first glance I wasn't sure he grounded the ball and it seemed another black (Noonie, according to the photo on the offy) seemed to fall on him. It didn't matter, the referee gave the try and it was the right decision.

Tom May's conversion went very close to the top of the post but in my opinion was probably just the wrong side, but this was a great start and the Falcons looked for more points in a well-disciplined first half in which I can't remember us giving away a single penalty. Leicester did however infringe in danger areas and three May penalties before half-time gave us an incredible 14-0 half time lead.

If someone had said three months ago that we'd have such an advantage at half time against Leicester, they'd have been carted off to the crazy house. But this is a different team, playing with confidence when they want to and capable of beating anybody. We had performed well and could have scored more tries but for missing a gap in front of the posts early on (easy to say from the back of the stand) and Leicester's defence.

The returning Toby Flood, quiet for most of the night, took advantage of our poor discipline in the second 40 to kick over a penalty, but I have to question whether referee Chris White simply never shouted “ruck” or he forgot that players aren't allowed to come in from the side. Despite Leicester's doing this at almost every breakdown it was the Falcons who were constantly penalised.

Ayoola Erinle missed a golden chance to score in front of the posts when he came inside to round the last defender and a man behind him caught up, and we won a scrum, although from that Dowson took the ball out and almost got caught before May was able to clear.

We also looked likely to score on the right but were held up and after the resulting scrum lost the ball.

David Wilson, Rob Vickers and Micky Young kept us going on a night the set-piece was occasionally sloppy, particularly the lineout for both sides, although our scrum held up well.

With just ten minutes to go you still felt the Falcons would find a way of throwing the game away (years of disappointment kind of print it on the brain), but as the clock ticked down, it eventually got to 20 seconds and we had a scrum in our 22.

Young looked to kick out but the kick was charged down (to howls of “knock-on”, including from me although the highlights may show differently) and Ben Youngs fell on the ball to score. I initially thought the referee had given a penalty, until it was pointed out that it was a try to Leicester. Dang. But the score, and Flood's quick conversion, didn't matter to us as the clock was on zero and the win was safe!

Woo, I'm tired just writing about it! At the start of the season many of us would have been happy with 11^th place in the table, however we are now in the heady heights of seventh!! Sixth looks out of range now after Sale's win against Bath, although someone mentioned that if Cardiff beat Toulouse (?) a seventh place would be opened up for English clubs. So with that and the Challenge Cup in mind, there's still all to play for this season.

Smithy calls last night “arguably the home performance of the season”, and in terms of defence it was indeed superb. It was certainly, for me, the best atmosphere at KP this season, and shows what we fans can do when we are up for the game, even if it wasn't as vital to us as the visits of Bristol and Gloucester.

Anyway, one home game left and a quarter-final to come before then. Things are surely on the up, aren't they?

And in case your smile has lessened any since last night, take a click at this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/tables/4776739.stm

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