Leicester Tigers boss Richard Cockerill was full of praise for Toby Flood and Ben Youngs after the England half-back duo masterminded a stunning 37-6 demolition of Bath at the Recreation Ground on Saturday afternoon.

Flood and Youngs, just seven days after turning in distinctly underwhelming performances in their nation's crushing Six Nations defeat by Ireland, were back at their brilliant best against Leicester's fiercest rivals. Youngs created two tries for his No.10, who also contributed 12 points with the boot. Tom Croft also crossed twice, while Anthony Allen produced a stunning solo effort as Leicester recorded their biggest away win in 96 years of games against Bath. However, Cockerill was in no doubt as to who had been his side's star men.

"I thought both of them, Toby and Ben, in terms of their attitude, were outstanding," he said. "Bath are great on the front foot, but they are not that comfortable when teams run at them, and our job was to make sure we had the ball as often as we could.

"On the face of it, it is a great result for us, but we started pretty poorly and we were lucky not to concede a couple of tries early on. At half-time, we were a little upset because we probably hadn't played as much as we should have done, but this is a great win, but was it a great performance?"

That Cockerill was questioning the quality of his side's display was not unsurprising because they had been dominated for long periods and it was only through a combination of their own impressive defensive work and Bath's shocking profligacy and equally atrocious accuracy that the league leaders managed to win the game so convincingly.

"There are a few lessons for us to learn from today," Cockerill added, alluding to his side's upcoming Heineken Cup quarter-final clash with Leinster in Dublin. "Leinster will punish us if we have a first 20 minutes like we had today. With the fire power they have got, there is no doubt about that."

Meanwhile, Bath head coach Steve Meehan was left lamenting his side's poor finishing after they managed to register two penalties from Butch James in spite of the fact that they had seen so much of the ball and created numerous openings, particularly in the first half. The loss, Bath's worst at home in Premiership history, means that they now stand seventh in the table, four points outside the play-offs.

"We played some good rugby, but Leicester took all their chances and they are certainly going to be difficult to stop," Meehan said. "It was disappointing to get no points out of the game, and it does make life more difficult, but we cannot rely on other results.

"Our preparation for this game wasn't great, our training wasn't as accurate as it needs to be, but that was not the reason why we didn't finish the opportunities we created. Some of the players said afterwards that it was an embarrassing scoreboard from our point of view, and there is no doubt that we need to improve in most facets of our game."