Leicester Tigers head coach John Wells made no excuses after his side's narrow 15-9 Zurich Premiership win over a struggling NEC Harlequins at The Stoop on Saturday. In fact, Wells praised his side for their 'professional' approach to a game that rarely threatened to reach great heights.

"We did a professional job today," he said. "Sure it would've been nice to score tries and play more expansive rugby, but we couldn't do that because of the weather and because of the opposition. Therefore we had to do whatever we had to do to try and get a win."

Wells even agreed with some of the media's summation of the game, and he added: "On the way over [to the press conference], I heard someone say 'bad game, bad weather, bad day' and they were right, but the fact is we won. We had to adapt to the weather conditions to win the game. All credit to Quins for not giving an inch. It was about territory and kicking the goals and we did that better than Quins on the day."

Strangely, despite this not being Tigers' best performance of the season, the nature of the win could be a good thing for the side, as Leicester are bound to be involved in similar matches this season as the weather, and the opposition, start playing a bigger role in proceedings.

"We're being talked up, but it's very, very early days," said Wells. "Yes, some teams are starting to put a few things together and we've done that, too, but there's a long, long way to go. The next four or five weeks are obviously going to have a massive impact on the Zurich Premiership because of other factors apart from having your best teams out. But, the end result is that teams that are perhaps doing well now, may not be doing that well in six weeks' time and then are going to have to fight and scrap again."

Whilst Tigers remain in first place with their sixth win of the 2004/05 season from seven starts, Quins remain firmly-entrenched at the bottom of the Zurich Premiership table - having suffered their seventh loss in a row this season.

"If they can get some consistency they will start edging these games," said Wells. "At some point they will turn it around. They have too many good players to be languishing at the wrong end of the table."

Worryingly for Tigers, veteran back Austin Healey failed a late fitness test on his hamstring - thereby ruling him out of the starting line-up, but they were also dealt a cruel blow in the 20th minute of the game when star centre Ollie Smith left the field in some discomfort with a shoulder injury.

"Ollie hurt his shoulder and will be out for four to six weeks, but we need time to assess the injury properly," said Tigers' coach. "He won't be able to play in the autumn internationals, if he was in the running."

On the topic of injuries, England flanker Lewis Moody did not get any game time, having been named on the bench for the first time this season after his 10-month lay-off with a serious foot injury.

Explained Wells: "Had the score been different or the nature of the game different, then you might have seen him on the field.

"Rightly or wrongly, I'm of the opinion that too many changes can often disrupt. People were suggesting to me that James Buckland should have a go at hooker. I know George wasn't having the best day in the line-outs, but the scrum at that point was belting the hell out of them, so why change something I knew was going to be working? Backy and co. were defending well around the fringes, and that doesn't mean to say that Lewis couldn't have done any better, but I didn't want to make changes that may have disrupted them."