Another week, another resounding victory for Northampton, who could afford to omit a handful of his stars and still have Leicester with a lot to do. It was their fourth home game in a row and, with scrum-half Alex Mitchell in top form, their resounding fourth win to underline where the balance of power lies in the East Midlands.

It was a painful afternoon for Leicester, who broke Dan Cole’s 235th record appearance in the League and were one point behind when Solomone Kata was sent off for a high tackle on Fraser Dingwall at game time.

The fact that Northampton can win Fin Smith and Tommy Freeman for impressive performances – while Courtney Lawes and Ollie Sleightholme are out of the team – and still get their biggest lead over Leicester in the Premiership is shown by the class gap in the middle of the sides.

Saints finished with five tries and consolidated first place. They will travel to Twickenham next Saturday to face the Harlequins, but a semi-final at home is certainly imminent, as for Leicester the prospect of the playoffs seems to be further and further away. It took Northampton a while to find something like top gear, but every time they did, the Tigers chased shadows.

“Since the World Cup we have seen that they are trying to mitigate as much as possible,” Leicester head coach Dan McKellar said of Kata’s red card. “I thought yellow was probably fair enough. It wasn’t a flagrant foul, it was a rugby accident, a yellow card and 10 minutes. But they thought it was a red card, so we will go through the process now.

“It was one of the [turning points]. The second half just wasn’t good enough. We were smacken well. I’m not even really worried about the playoffs, I’m just worried about the performance.”

Leicester held Northampton back for most of the first half, taking advantage of a yellow card for Elliot Millar-Mills by scoring Julián Montoya’s opening try on the back of the driving maul. In the positive column, you can NOTE a successful first start in the Premier League as a flanker for the England U20 captain Finn Carnduff, and they took a 10-6 lead at halftime, but with Jasper Wiese in the trash can.

Northampton scored two tries in the first seven minutes of the second half. The fit hooker Curtis Langdon had the first and showed an impressive change on the left side after a good work from outside defender James Ramm. The second attempt was a penalty attempt, which was granted because Tom Seabrook was all alone on the left wing, and George Furbank’s pass would have found him if Jamie Shillcock had not intervened and hit the ball. Leicester’s full-back received a yellow card for his troubles.

In Leicester’s favour they stayed in the action and with Ollie Chessum at the helm they scored a second try with a well worked out line-up that caused Meadow to crash. Handré Pollard’s conversion reduced Northampton’s lead to 18-17.

However, Leicester’s chances were hit with a hammer blow when Kata received a red card and Robbie Smith’s attempt at a field goal attempt allowed Northampton to breathe on the scoreboard before George Hendy’s delicious score brought the bonus point.