Leicester Tigers director of rugby Richard Cockerill was delighted to see Toby Flood return to action last weekend – and, now that he has been released by England, he is free to play against Exeter.

Fly-half Flood joined up with the England squad earlier this week as they prepared to face Italy in Rome in the Six Nations Championship tomorrow. However, he was one of eight players released by Stuart Lancaster on Tuesday evening, along with his club colleague Thomas Waldrom.

A further boost for Cockerill is the news that England centre Manu Tuilagi could feature as he was due to resume full training this week.

“Manu Tuilagi will have a full training week this week, and should be available for selection against Exeter,” Cockerill said. “Louis Deacon’s season, unfortunately, might be over.”

Flood featured off the bench as a strong Leicester side beat Newcastle Falcons 24-13 to reach next month’s semi-finals of the LV= Cup.

Flood was not the only Leicester player to have been with the national squad last week, as Dan Cole, Tom Croft, Geoff Parling and Ben Youngs – who all featured in the 13-6 win against Scotland – were also involved, alongside Waldrom.

Prior to last weekend, Flood had not played a game since straining knee ligaments suffered in the victory over Sale on New Year’s Day. He admitted after the Newcastle match that the Tigers will have to play a lot better against Exeter than their performance against his old club.

Flood said: “We would have liked to have got a fourth try but I don’t think it would have changed anything as to where we are in the group.

“You can’t make excuses about the conditions,” he added. “Newcastle made it very difficult for us. We will need to be better at Exeter, but it’s time to put this game to bed and not to dwell on the manner of how we won it.”

The Tigers will have to make the trip to Devon this weekend without their England quartet of Youngs, Cole, Croft and Parling, as well as Italy prop Martin Castrogiovanni.

“We played them earlier in the season without our World Cup guys, and now we are playing them during the Six Nations, so that’s not ideal,” Cockerill added.

Leicester have recalled fly-half George Ford from England’s Under-20 squad, and he is likely to be in their squad.