Leicester Tigers player ratings vs Bristol | 2025/26 Gallagher PREM

Leicester Tigers player ratings: Leicester blended flashes of high-tempo invention with some grit-your-teeth resolve to put away a Bristol side that refused to fade quietly. When Tigers clicked, their attack had a looseness and freedom that has too often eluded them this season, driven by a fly-half playing right on the gainline.

Defensive blemishes ensured a few nervous passages, but the game’s decisive moments all seemed to belong to men in green, and by the time the late salvo landed, the 33-19 result felt like a fair reflection of their ambition.

Here’s our Leicester Tigers’ ratings:

1. Nicky Smith – 5.5
Again a penalty magnet for referee Luke Pearce and under the cosh too often at scrum time. A couple of tidy touches in the loose, but the set-piece picture dragged the number down.

2. Jamie Blamire – 7.5
Power over the ball and sharp at contact. Gave Tigers punch in the collisions and a tidy arrow. One of Leicester’s tone-setters on both sides of the ball.

3. Joe Heyes – 6.5
Work-rate right up there in the tackle count, but Bristol shaded the dark arts and Leicester never fully dictated the hit. Honest graft, limited joy.

4. Hanro Liebenberg – 7.5
Took his try with customary ruthlessness from close range and was a constant nuisance around the breakdown.

5. Ollie Chessum – 8
Couldn’t be expected to replicate Paris heroics, but still carried with purpose and burst the line late as Tigers turned the screw. Big involvements at big moments.

6. Joaquin Moro – 8
Opened the account with a well-finished score and kept popping up in the right lanes thereafter. Industrious without the ball and clinical with it.

7. Hamish Watson – 7.5
Non-stop on debut: all the terrier traits you’d expect from the former Edinburgh, Scotland and British & Irish Lions star. Tackled like a diligent Border Collie herding Bristolian sheep, and never stopped hunting shoulders.

8. Olly Cracknell – 7
Mr Dependable. The Welshman crumbled ball carriers and set a combative tone through the guts. Not flashy, but relentlessly effective.

9. Tom Whiteley – 6.5
Crisp service kept the tempo high, yet fell off a few too many tackles in the first half. Replaced as the screws tightened after the break.

10. Billy Searle – 8.5
How good. Took the ball to the line repeatedly and early, and Leicester looked wonderfully fluid around him. Beat defenders for fun, made linebreaks aplenty and deservedly sealed it with the 77th-minute penalty. A conductor’s display.

11. Ollie Hassell-Collins — 7
Out of position for Ravouvou’s try when he found himself stuck in no-man’s-land. Rebounded with ambition: that chip-and-chase in a Harlem Globetrotters passage nearly put Searle in, only a last-ditch tackle denying the highlight.

12. Orlando Bailey – 8
Second only to Searle for metres made. Picked his lines smartly and provided the extra distributor Leicester needed to keep Bristol guessing.

13. Will Wand – 6.5
Not the tidiest opening forty, a touch profligate with the pill at times, but kept showing and held his width when Tigers stretched the Bears.

14. Gabriel Hamer-Webb – 8
In the wars. Took a big shot at one breakdown but then popped up to finish a lovely passing movement late on. Sharpened the edge out wide.

15. Freddie Steward – 6.5
A really poor tackle attempt for Ravouvou’s try blotted the copybook. Balanced that with a couple of neat offloads in attack and safer handling thereafter, but the miss lingered.

Replacements – 7
A collective uptick. Jack van Poortvliet added bite and tempo at 9; Harry Palmer’s score on 65 minutes created crucial daylight in what had been a one-point arm-wrestle for 14 minutes straight; the fresh front and back-row bodies kept the line speed high and the ruck tidy enough for Searle to close.