Leicester kept themselves on course for a place in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals with an eight-try demolition of Treviso at Welford Road.

It maintained Leicester's record of never having lost to an Italian side in 10 meetings in the competition and followed their 60-16 win in Treviso last October.

Tigers had the game safely wrapped up by half-time after they scored 40 points in a one-sided first period, with former All Blacks Scott Hamilton and Aaron Mauger leading the rout with two tries each.

Leicester lost some of their shape when they made a raft of second-half substitutions but Treviso were not good enough to capitalise.

The Italians travelled with a depleted side with former Wasps centre Fraser Waters among their absentees.

Treviso's ambitions did not extend much beyond damage limitation, but even that proved beyond them as Leicester ran riot.

The hosts' forwards soon established control against an under-powered Treviso pack, meaning England fly-half Toby Flood had a plentiful supply of possession to work with and Leicester's three-quarters ran the Italians ragged.

Hamilton scored two tries in the first 13 minutes and it was almost a hat-trick.

He powered through weak tackling for his first try after four minutes and then collected a scoring pass from Geordan Murphy for his second. Hamilton crossed the line again in between but was adjudged to have put a foot in touch before he grounded the ball.

Leicester's forwards enjoyed the opportunity to demonstrate their superiority in the scrum when they shunted Treviso backwards and a penalty try was awarded when the visitors prevented the ball from being released.

Leicester secured the bonus point after 26 minutes when captain Mauger rounded off a flowing move but there was not let up for Treviso.

Winger Matt Smith muscled over in the corner and Tigers maintained their first-half average of a point a minute when Mauger crossed for his second try and Flood added his fifth conversion from the touchline.

Although Treviso were second best in most facets of the game they won applause from a 16,746 crowd for twice turning down kickable penalties. On the second occasion they opted to take on Leicester's mighty scrum but centre Marco Neethling knocked on when the ball was moved wide.

After that brief flurry of activity from Treviso, Leicester got back into their stride. Rookie scrum-half Ben Youngs, son of former England international Nick, carved open the defence with a superb break and Murphy capitalised on the overlap.

Flood added his sixth conversion and was then replaced by Derick Hougaard for the final 30 minutes - during which uncontested scrums were ordered after Treviso ran out of specialist front-row forwards..

Youngs almost scored himself from another searing break, but he lost possession when he was hauled down just short of the line by Mark Gilbride.

Replacement Johne Murphy bought up Leicester's half-century when he rounded off another flowing move.

That proved to be the final score, although man-of-the-match Youngs touched down in the dying minutes only for his try to be disallowed for crossing earlier in the move.