South Africa assistant coach Dick Muir admitted he had never seen a Springbok front five so comprehensively outmuscled as they were in the shock 22-17 defeat to Leicester.

The Tigers marked the return of midweek warm-up matches to the autumn international calendar by exposing glaring weaknesses in the world champions' pack ahead of their Tests against France, Italy and Ireland.

In temporary charge before the arrival of Peter de Villiers, Muir said: "I don't think I've ever seen (a South Africa pack) as bad as that, especially from a coaching perspective. We were given a bit of a lesson at the scrums."

Muir named nine uncapped players in his matchday squad, but the presence of Jannie du Plessis and Danie Rossouw ensured they were no pushover for the Guinness Premiership champions.

"You can't play this game without any possession," added Muir. "We were poor at the breakdown and poor at set pieces so we couldn't get the game going.

"We just move on. We came over here with an experiment and perhaps it didn't come off as planned.

"Hats off to the Tigers. They were incredibly strong in that department so we've got to go back to the drawing board."