Billy Twelvetrees will get the nod over George Ford as Leicester Tigers' back-up fly-half while Toby Flood recovers from injury.

Director of rugby Richard Cockerill confirmed yesterday that Flood would miss Saturday's Aviva Premiership game with Exeter at Welford Road.

However, Cockerill refused to expand on the length of time the 25-year-old would be out with the knee injury he picked up against Northampton on Sunday.

Jeremy Staunton is set to move into the starting No.10 shirt in Flood's absence, and Cockerill has put paid to the debate over whether he would promote 21-year-old centre Twelvetrees or 17-year-old fly-half Ford into the back-up role.

"George is a very young man and is unlikely to be chucked into the cauldron," said Cockerill.

"But Billy can play fly-half and the way the game is being played this season in a loose and fractious way, it may suit his game.

"Toby has had a scan and we are awaiting specialist reports on that to decide what the next course of action is.

"Until we get those through, there is no more news on him.

"He won't be fit this weekend, that is pretty obvious, but we will see what the specialists recommend and we will deal with it from there."

While Flood's absence is a blow to Leicester, England's first-choice fly-half was also missing for the opening three months of Tigers' championship-winning 2009-10 campaign.

With Sam Vesty also missing at the time, Staunton slotted in and Cockerill says he has full trust in the former Wasps man to do a similar job if Flood is facing a lengthy spell out.

"You could have worried about lack of cover last year but Staunton came in and played pretty much half a season before Flood played a game," said Cockerill.

"Jez is a good player. Some people don't like him or the way he plays, but you know what you get from him."

Leicester are expected to make few changes from the side which lost at Franklin's Gardens.

Despite new second-row signings Steve Mafi and Ben Gulliver showing up well in the A League win over Northampton on Monday night, Cockerill said it was "a fraction too early" to consider them for first-team action because of the time it takes to learn line-out calls.

Flanker Tom Croft is likely to make the match-day squad for the first time this season.