IT was a great day out at Welford Road for Otley and their supporters.

Four coaches plus car travellers went down to Leicester and the approach of the players and the behaviour of the followers was commented upon over the loudspeaker at the end of the game by past-president Tudor Thomas.

However, it was 13 tries and hat-tricks for both Freddie Tuilagi and Perry Freshwater that caught the headlines of this match, as Premiership champions Leicester Tigers notched up a record Tetleys Bitter Cup score against their National Division One opponents.

All the Otley replacements took the field, as did most of Leicester's, including England forward Martin Johnson, who came on for one scrummage before the final whistle went.

Peter Clegg had told his Otley boys to to out and enjoy the experience and this they did.

In doing so, they brought applause from a crowd of more than 5,000 with their endeavours and caused a crisis meeting for the home side when they crossed for a try.

The forwards gave no ground throughout at the set piece and the whole side were ready to attack at every opportunity, but the strength and speed of their full time professional opponents was to prove too much.

One man who is obviously going to delight the fans is Samoan Fereti Tuilagi, who has just signed for the Tigers from St Helens Rugby League Club.

He brought squeals of delight every time he touched the ball and he was good value with his hat-trick, which could have been one more had he not slipped, instead providing the scoring pass.

The Samoan centre scored after just two minutes, started off the move which led to his second try after 17 minutes and almost touched down from an Andy Goode break in the 20th minute. Instead he recycled the ball for Leon Lloyd to score in the corner.

With the score at 19-0, James Lofthouse kicked a penalty and on 38 minutes, when his second penalty attempt bounced back off the upright, Tom Lauriston was on hand to gather the rebound and set up a maul which led to Number 8 Lee Denham crossing just before half-time to make it 33-8.

Lofthouse kicked a second penalty after the break but with Austin Healey now orchestrating from full-back, having swapped positions with Andy Goode, Leicester began to get men out wide and gaps started appearing in the Otley defence.

These were severely punished. Perry Freshwater, a half-time substitute for Paul Gustard, also procured a hat-trick and other scores came from Leon Lloyd, Gustard, Healey, John O'Reilly, Peter Short, Will Johnson and Goode, who also kicked nine conversions.

In his post match interview, Dean Richards the Leicester coach, was generous towards his opponents, remarking that they were welll drilled in certain areas and offered quite a bit in others.

However, he also pointed out the widening gap between the full-time professional players in the Premiership, and those of National Division One.

He said: "Unfortunately, you don't like to say this - our boys have trained all year and season after season to win games and rugby is their profession.

"I'm pretty sure that it isn't for a number of the Otley boys. The gulf at the top is clearly widening.

"Our appreciation of what it takes to be professional rugby player in terms of body management and skill levels is improving all the time."

Clegg was philosophical about the defeat, pointing out he no longer felt automatic promotion into the top flight was appropriate.

He said he now preferred the First Division clubs' proposal of a play-off place.

"Putting a weak team up there that just takes a slugging every week is no goof for the game," he added.

One other worry was a rib injury to Otley's Phil Griffin, which may keep him out for a week or two.

However, all was not doom and gloom for the Cross Green boys.

The tie should have netted them around £20,000 for their share of the gate recipts.

Otley have no game on Saturday due to the fifth round of the Tetley Bitter Cup being played.

l Leeds Tykes also suffered a heavy defeat in the Tetleys Bitter Cup at the hands of Northampton Saints.

The Tykes had two players sinbinned in their 73-35 defeat.