Ellis Genge: 'It is the darkest place the club's been...Geordan was speechless'

England prop Ellis Genge has admitted the Leicester players are letting the club down after they slumped to 29-15 loss to arch-rivals Northampton at Welford Road which used to be a fortress for the former European and English champions.

Now, Leicester find themselves down in 10th place in the Gallagher Premiership with five rounds of matches to go and could be dragged into the relegation battle.

According to Genge, who was one of five England players drafted back into the team against Saints, this is an unacceptable situation but worryingly for Tigers fans he does not have an answer to the problems. The result piles more pressure on head coach Geordan Murphy who was asked to fill the void created by the departure of Richard Cockerill who has transformed Edinburgh’s fortunes since moving to Scotland.

Genge told LTTV; “This is becoming less and less surprising and that hurts me a lot and we are no doing the badge proud. I want to win silverware and it is looking less likely that we will achieve anything this season but we do have five games left.

“Geordan was speechless and having been part of those golden eras you can imagine how much it hurts. This is a tough one to take and we were second best in the breakdown and scrum and Saints were class.

“I don’t know what it is down to, but one thing can assure the fans is that boys are not going to shy away. It is the darkest place the club’s been in for a fair few years and I appreciate all the frustrations and the feelings of the former players who have put so much into the shirt over the years and we are hurting just as much as everyone else.

“It is down to us and we can’t just point the finger at the coaches and as a playing group we have to try to sort this out. We are grafting hard to find a solution.”

Coach Geordan Murphy said: “I feel sick, to be honest. It was incredibly disappointing. The top four is going to be very difficult for us new and so is the top six.”