TOM CROFT, England's first-choice blindside flanker, suffered an injury to his left knee 26 minutes into this lopsided Leicester bonus-point procession which puts his participation in the Six Nations in serious doubt.
He had to be helped from the pitch after wrenching his knee. Croft suffered torn medial ligaments to the same knee five weeks ago against Leeds and only returned last weekend as a replacement against Wasps.
England are not alone in having their plans disrupted by Croft's injury, because the Tigers now travel to Wales for Saturday's decisive last pool game against the Ospreys without him.
By the time Croft departed, Leicester were already well on their way to the four tries needed to keep them in the hunt for a quarter-final berth, Dan Hipkiss and Ben Woods touching down. Toby Flood converted both to give the Tigers a 14-3 advantage.
Further tries before the break by Flood and Scott Hamilton (two) gave Leicester the bonus point they wanted.
Advertisement
A messy second half ensued, typified when Pablo Canavosio scored for Viadana after a mid-air collision between Lote Tuqiri and Hamilton.
Leicester came back to score their sixth and seventh tries through Hipkiss and Aaron Mauger but will have to be more clinical if they are to beat the Ospreys.
Star man: Toby Flood (Leicester)
Scorers: Leicester: Tries: Hipkiss 6, 70, Woods 20, Flood 32, Hamilton 34, 39, Mauger 74 Cons: Flood (5), Vesty Viadana: Try: Canavosio 55 Pen: Law Yellow card: Viadana: Law 48
Referee: J Jones (Wales) Attendance: 21,726
Leicester: S Hamilton (J Murphy 59min); A Tuilagi, D Hipkiss, S Vesty, L Tuqiri; T Flood (A Mauger 52min), B Youngs (J Grindal 57min); M Ayerza (B Stankovich 67min), G Chuter, D Cole (J White 57min), L Deacon (capt), G Parling (L Moody 59min), T Croft (C Newby 26min), B Woods, J Crane.
Viadana: G Law; M Pratichetti, S Cox, L Johansson, M Sepe (S Pace 42min); P Hola, P Canavosio (M Wilson 63min); P Sciamanna (M Cagna 63min), L Ferraro (capt) (R Santamaria 67min), J Garcia (L Milani 70min), C del Fava (G Krause 52min), S Hohneck, A Persico, A Benatti (A Birchall 56min), J Erasmus.