Six Nations time it may be, but Leicester show no sign of letting anyone else have a go at the top of the English game. This was far from being their most fluent showing – indeed it was a relentless slog on what became more and more of a bog – but their dominance of possession and territory was such that they did not have to be at their best.

Their great rivals as England's premier club, Wasps, now seemingly in decline for the time being, were left in no doubt about who were the bosses of Welford Road, a place where Wasps have had some joy in recent years. They came here in a right state, having parted company with their director of rugby, Tony Hanks, in the week after a depressing home defeat in the rain by Gloucester last weekend. They came here short of a full deck themselves, but they dug in heroically, a fitting tribute to the departed Hanks.

And Wasps will argue that, but for an early interception try, they might have caused real problems here. As it was, though, they were pounded into the mud. With Wasps' line-out problems as bad as ever, it was an afternoon of endless tackling for the visitors.

Wasps were not the first team to come here just after parting company with their gaffer. Sale had done it shortly after Christmas, hot on the heels of the dismissal of Mike Brewer, and they were duly walloped. Here, Wasps were far less inclined to roll over and feel sorry for themselves.

Joe Worsley led a ferocious defensive effort, until he was led from the fray just before half-time, and the rest of them followed him into the breach. From the respective reactions their departure inspired at Welford Road, it seems Hanks was more popular than Brewer.

Nevertheless they were up against it, as most are when they come here, even during the Six Nations when virtually a team's worth of talent are absent from Leicester colours. Leicester ruled the lineout against a thrown-together Wasps pack. Faced with that, the last thing you want to do is gift the Tigers anything, which is what Dave Walder did, flinging out a mis-pass in his own half, which Jeremy Staunton intercepted for a simple run-in.

Otherwise, it was a close, feisty affair, until Steve Mafi galloped through some bewildered defence out wide for Leicester's second try and an 18-9 lead on the half-hour.

Things looked ominous, as Leicester started to dominate the scrums as well. Worsley left the field, replaced by James Cannon, the fourth lock forward in a pack starting to labour. And the first thing he had to do was to help man a defensive five-metre scrum against a now-salivating pack of Tigers.

What followed was yet more evidence of Hanks's popularity, not only holding the drive, but turning the ball over, so that Walder might belt it away to halfway. Had Walder then not missed a penalty, Wasps might have gone in only six points down.

Leicester kept coming after the break, relentlessly driving into the Wasps' willing defensive wall. There was a lack of snap or imagination to Leicester's waves of attack – it's that heavy time of year – but it seemed only a matter of time before they had their third try. All the more so when they were awarded another five-metre scrum but, again, Wasps defied expectation and held firm. Thomas Waldrom was forced to pick up at the base, and he was humiliatingly walloped by Nic Berry, a mere scrum-half.

It was a little vignette, if that's not too twee a word for a mud-wrestle of this kind, that summed up the afternoon. Nothing much changed for the rest of the game, other than that Leicester dropped more and more of the ball in the thickening conditions. Tom Croft came on for the last quarter and survived, which will please some Leicester old boys down Twickenham way. Wasps, though, will feel that it was a lot of hard work for precisely nothing.