A 24-13 defeat was one of the 'better' defeats I've seen at Welford Road over the last few years and it reminds us that just because we have a good new coaching team, Gary Gold is correct that they will not be working miracles and everything will not suddenly come together.

There were positives today though – a solid lineout, strong scrum and excellent defence in the face of some probing home attacking.

Jon Golding started his first game of the season for the Falcons and Richard Mayhew wore the number 7 shirt, while Greg Goosen's return to full-back saw Jimmy Gopperth return to the fly-half position.

Former Falcon Ben Woods captained Leicester, who also named Craig Newby, James Grindal and Toby Flood on the bench, the latter no doubt looking to prove his fitness for the rest of the Six Nations.

On a bitterly cold day in the Midlands, Thomas Waldrom went over from a spell of forward play for the opening try, which Jeremy Staunton converted. In the build-up for the try Leicester did a clever move from a lineout, the ball being knocked down by the jumper and a maul then formed in the next phase, drawing defenders away. I would hope we might pull such a trick later in the season.

Staunton kicked a penalty soon after, but on our first real attack Gopperth knocked over a kick.

Staunton restored his side's 10-point lead with a soft penalty given for our players not retiring 10 metres at a tap penalty. This is something that needs to be changed – at the moment it is a licence for a team to just move a penalty forward a few metres.

Gopperth scored his second penalty, and we then had probably our best chance of a try in the first half, Jon Golding hacking on into the Tigers' 22 but only he and Mayhew were in a position to chase and we were unable to capitalise.

Leicester went 19-6 ahead with the final kick of the half, Staunton knocking over his fourth penalty of the day.

At half-time Ashley Wells came on for Golding, joining Joel Hodgson who had replaced the injured Corne Uys in the first 40.

Any hopes the Falcons had of turning the scoreline around probably ended with George Skivington's try from close range in the second half. However, we then put together a good spell of possession that I hear BBC Leicester enthused about.

Several tries proved fruitless until Gopperth broke through by the posts and then converted his own try.

With 12 minutes left any renewed hope ended with Taiasina Tu'ifua was sin-binned on our five-metre line for not releasing a tackled player, an offence referee David Rose was keen to penalise all day. Nothing wrong with that of course.

With the snow coming down heavily and most of the alleged 19,000 spectators (can't really call them supporters, I've never known such a quiet crowd at a rugby match!) having left their seats or the terrace, a knock-on in the Tigers' half ended the match.

So that's another cup over for us for the season. Other results today mean that a bonus point win would have been enough to get us into the semis, but that would have been quite something at a ground we have not conquered for over 14 years.

We have to now hope that these last couple of games have helped messers Gold, Ford, Wells and Moriarty ahead of our assault on the Premiership, that begins a week today in Bath. Of course, we still have to visit Welford Road in the league later this month, and if given a choice between winning that or today, we all know which we would prefer.

I know negativity is now banned from this board (thankfully!), but I have to chuck something in here – the Pukka Pies chippy on Granby Street in Leicester was closed after the game! Frozen through, I was not happy.

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