This was not just a thumping derby day win for Leicester Tigers. This was a wholesale destruction of Prem Rugby’s leaders and an emphatic statement of their own title credentials.

It was based squarely on the broad shoulders of Tigers’ tight five of Nicky Smith, Jamie Blamire, Joe Heyes, Ollie Chessum and George Martin. As much as rugby evolves, there is something refreshingly old-fashioned about Leicester using the set-piece to bludgeon teams into submission.

Northampton Saints, who lost second-row Tom Lockett in the warm-up, were dominated at the scrum and dismantled in the line-out. At one stage Henry Pollock was acting as emergency hooker but it made no difference as he lost both his throws. Even the full-time hookers – Robbie Smith and Craig Wright – were picked off almost at will by Chessum, who ranked this as his favourite derby victory.

Up front, it was just as brutal as Saints’ props were repeatedly popping up under monstrous pressure to the delight of a sold-out Mattioli Woods Welford Road, which also witnessed five yellow cards and a red card for Izaia Perese. At one point a coming together of players looked like it might fall into the crowd.

“That’s why I love coaching here,” Geoff Parling, the Leicester head coach, said. “It is no frills here. The benches in the changing rooms are the same ones from 40-50 years ago and I don’t really want to change that. We have got a crowd who do not just appreciate scoring a try in the corner, they appreciate a scrum pen and a maul try. There’s a big connection with the crowd. The way we move and spread the ball, I would never do that at the expense of our set-piece, defence and toughness.”

The seven-try victory puts Leicester within one point of second-placed Bath, who play Exeter Chiefs on Sunday, and five of Northampton in the race for a home semi-final. That could well come down to Bath versus Leicester in the final game of the season. “I still believe that when we play our game and we have that emotional edge then we can play and challenge anyone, which you saw today,” Parling said. “Our challenge is can we do that week on week.”

The set-piece superiority flowed into nearly every other area. Tommy Reffell and Smith ran riot at the breakdown, Freddie Steward gobbled up every high ball that came his way and Adam Radwan repeatedly punctured the Saints defence. Saints were also denied any semblance of quick ball on which their attack thrives bar an early score from Tommy Freeman.

A late couple of scores from George Hendy and Freeman gave a hint of respectability that Northampton did not really deserve. “We were well beaten by a good side,” Phil Dowson, the Northampton director of rugby, said. “To get a thumping like that is painful. There are times when you’re going to take a hiding. It’s how you respond.”

Parling noted that Leicester found the right emotional edge and that was evident in their desire to pound their Midlands neighbours into the dust from the first minute to the last. It began with Martin’s first try in two years after good hands from Chessum. Freeman replied but Ollie Hassell-Collins breezed past George Furbank and then Blamire rumbled over after a close-range line-out move to give Leicester a 19-5 half-time lead.

Any semblance of a Northampton comeback was quickly snuffed out in the second half as James O’Connor added a penalty before Radwan gathered Jack van Poortvliet’s beautifully weighted chip to register Leicester’s bonus point score.

After that it was effectively party time for Leicester as Blamire scored his second try from a maul after which Wright and Heyes were both sent to the sin-bin. Steward then brought up Leicester’s highest score against Saints in the league at home to cue wild celebrations. Even Perese’s red card for a head-on-head contact on Furbank could not dampen the mood around a sold-out Welford Road. They believe in Parling’s team. So will everyone else after this.

Match details

Scoring sequence: 5-0 Martin try, 5-5 Freeman try, 10-5 Hassell-Collins try, 12-5 O’Connor con, 17-5 Blamire try, 19-5 O’Connor con, 22-5 O’Connor pen, 27-5 Radwan try, 29-5 O’Connor, 34-5 Blamire try, 39-5 Steward try, 41-5 Bailey con, 41-10 Hendy try, 41-12 Smith con, 41-17 Freeman try.

Leicester Tigers: F Steward; A Radwan (I Perese, 66), W Wand, O Bailey, O Hassell-Collins; J O’Connor (S Kata, 52), J Van Poortvliet (T Whiteley, 68); N Smith (A van der Flier, 57), J Blamire (C Clare, 66), J Heyes (W Hurd, 66), O Chessum, G Martin (C Henderson, 27-32, 56), H Liebenberg, T Reffell (S Williams, 66), J Moro. 
Sin-bin: J Heyes (50), C Clare (67). Red card: I Perese (75).

Northampton Saints: G Furbank; T Freeman (T Litchfield, 71), R Hutchinson (T Freeman, 75), F Dingwall, G Hendy; F Smith, A Mitchell (A McParland, 52); E Iyogun (T West, 57), R Smith (C Wright, 41), L Green (E Millar Mills, 57), C Munga (E Atuanya, 75), JJ van der Mescht (E Prowse), J Kemeny, S Graham (H Pollock, 53), C Chick. 
Sin-bin: C Chick (7), J Kemeny (48), C Wright (50).

Referee: M Carley