Tuilagi not ready for England yet, says Ford

George Ford played down talk of an England return for Manu Tuilagi after the centre had celebrated his 100th appearance for the club with an opportunist try.

Tuilagi dived over the top of a ruck to score the try that ended Leicester’s run of six straight defeats in all competitions and played the full 80 minutes of his fourth match back after knee surgery.

It’s two years since Tuilagi played international rugby but Ford, Leicester’s captain for the day, believes it could take six to eight matches before his clubmate is ready to rejoin him in England’s squad.

“Manu is building his way back into his game,” Ford said. “That was another 80 minutes for him. He’s powerful. You saw that from some of the carries he had today.

“That’s only his third or fourth game back and it’s going to take 10, 11, 12 games for him to be back anywhere where we know he can be. If we are patient we will get the best out of Manu I’m sure.”

Tuilagi’s try and his centre partnership with Matt Toomua were among the few positives in a disjointed performance from Leicester, who made desperately hard work of subduing the Premiership’s bottom club. “When you are not winning it’s not great for confidence,” Ford said. “I don’t think we are where we need to be with confidence levels to go out and play our game.

“The effort and commitment is there which is a great platform to build your game on. We need to be more accurate in the little intricacies to build more pressure.

“We are always going to be a dangerous team in terms of the back line, the back row and the ball carriers we have got. We just need to put a bit more of it all together.

“If we as backs can look after the ball a bit more and the forwards can maybe give us a bit cleaner ball from set-piece, and little bits and bobs like that, it will make the world of difference for us.”