Leicester Tigers head coach Geoff Parling says there is a “beauty” in defensive rugby that can be lost among the avalanche of tries being scored in the Prem.

There were a record 52 tries scored on the opening weekend of the campaign, with nine out of 10 teams scoring at least 24 points.

A record number of points piled up across the five top-flight matches.

“Most people love it and think that it’s great that everyone is scoring loads of tries,” Parling told BBC Radio Leicester.

“I think you can have a great game and a great contest if 15-13 is the score, I really do.

“Attack seems to be more of the priority, but I think you can still have a beautiful game – a great game that’s hard and there’s contests and there’s teams working for each other and going hard at each other and teams not giving an inch to anyone – and it be low-scoring.”

Tigers’ 40-38 defeat by Saracens on Sunday was among the weekend try-fests, with each side scoring six apiece in the game at Mattioli Woods Welford Road – which included a hat-trick from Leicester’s Gabriel Hamer-Webb.

Parling said the “electric” attacking options he has in the backline were always poised and ready to be unleashed, but quickly added that he wanted to see a greater balance between attacking blitzes and defensive resolve.

“I want people to attack space and I’ve always found it incredibly frustrating if I see a player not backing themselves for a two-on-one no matter where it is on the pitch,” he said.

“If we’ve got some electric people in the back three, it would be sensible for us to use them.

“But it’s more looking at the tools we’ve got and how I play the game. I don’t want that to ever be at the expense of the other bits, which it was at the weekend for us.

“I don’t want that to be a consistent thing.”

Parling went on to say the bonus-point structure of the Prem, which includes one point being awarded to a team for scoring four tries or more in a match, has played a part in the free-flowing style of rugby that is now commonplace in the competition.

It differs from the points system used in the southern hemisphere’s Super Rugby competition and France’s Top 14, in which a try-scoring bonus is awarded to a team that has grabbed three or more tries than their opponent.

Tigers bagged two bonus points in their defeat by Saracens, one for tries scored and the other for losing by fewer than seven points, while Newcastle – who host Tigers next – also lost their season opener and picked up a try-scoring bonus point in what was a heavy 59-26 loss at champions Northampton Saints.

“Our bonus-point system is weighted towards trying to get people to score four and make sure that’s a priority according to most games,” he said.

“I know the framework in Super Rugby and France is different, but it definitely adds to it in this comp.

“If you get beaten by 40 points and still score four tries, I don’t think you should be rewarded for that.”