George Ford returned from international duty to guide Leicester to a hard-fought win against Newcastle.

Newcastle registered tries from Will Welch and Sam Stuart, but also had a try disallowed in either half.

Leicester survived being reduced to 13 men at one stage when both Jasper Wiese and George Martin were sin-binned.

Tigers moved up a place to seventh with the victory, while Newcastle, who are without an away win since early December, dropped a place to 10th.

The Falcons struggled to get a foothold in the game and were dealt an early setback when prop Jon Welsh was forced off with what director of rugby Dean Richards confirmed was a dislocated shoulder after Wiese's side entry at the ruck.

Leicester back row Liebenberg went over for the game's opening try after his fellow South African Wiese had made ground with the initial burst.

Ben Stevenson went close to hauling Newcastle back into it, but his score in the corner was chalked off as Tigers centre Dan Kelly forced him into touch with a last-ditch covering tackle.

Ford, making his first appearance since the end of the Six Nations, kicked three penalties to hand Leicester a 16-0 lead at half-time as Newcastle's growing penalty count saw them lose Darren Barry to the sin-bin.

Newcastle came out with greater intent from the restart, but despite relentless pressure in the Leicester red zone, they saw Adam Brocklebank's try disallowed for a knock-on from a pick-and-go.

Leicester number eight Wiese and replacement back row Martin were both yellow-carded in the space of four minutes, and the visitors took advantage when Welch was adjudged to have crossed under the posts to get Newcastle on the scoreboard.

However, Ford's fourth penalty eased the pressure on 13-man Tigers.

With Leicester back up to full strength, replacement hooker Clare scored from a rolling maul in the closing moments after Freddie Steward had seen a try disallowed when Luan de Bruin was penalised for foul play off the ball on Callum Chick.

Stuart's try from a quickly-taken tap penalty proved too little, too late for Newcastle who slipped to a fourth straight defeat.

Leicester head coach Steve Borthwick told BBC Radio Leicester:

"What you've got to recognise is we really want to win games and this is a team who haven't won very many games for several years.

"That winning habit becomes something we're trying to develop here because there was very clearly a losing habit present.

"We're trying to change that. Would we liked to have scored more points? Every game you want to and there were opportunities to do that today.

"So we'll take away the things we did well and try and make them even stronger and find the things we could've done even better and try and work on them."

Newcastle director of rugby Dean Richards:

"There just didn't seem to be consistency in the (refereeing) decisions in the first half, but in the second half we picked it up a bit.

"We just wanted to play a bit more with ball in hand as in the first half we tried to do too much from within our own half and George Ford, of course, kicked well throughout to pin us back.

"But in the first half, I was with the players on how hard done by they felt, it seemed there was a pre-conceived idea of how they were going to referee the game.

"That's by the by, it's happened and it's done and we'll have to look after Jon Welsh when he gets home."

Leicester: Steward; Potter, Moroni, Kelly, Murimurivalu; Ford, Wigglesworth; Genge, T Youngs, Cole, Wells, Green, Liebenberg, Reffell, Wiese.

Replacements: Clare, de Bruin, Heyes, Henderson, Martin, Van Poortvliet, McPhillips, Porter.

Sin-bin: Wiese (56), Martin (60).

Newcastle: Tait; Wacokecoke, Lucock, Burrell, Stevenson; Hodgson, Schreuder; Brocklebank, Blamire, Welsh, Barry, Robinson, Welch, Wilson (c), Chick.

Replacements: McGuigan, Cooper, Tampin, Collett, van der Walt, Stuart, Connon, Passman.

Sin-bin: Barry (40).

Referee: Karl Dickson (RFU).