Modelling of electron acceleration driven by laser wakefield in centimetre-long capillary tubes was performed and compared with experimental results. Simulations using the WAKE code (Mora and Antonsen 1997 Phys. Plasma 4 217) were compared with the results of the 3D particle-in-cell CALDER-CIRC code (Lifschitz et al 2009 J. Comput. Phys. 228 1803). The results give some insight into the role of guiding to achieve electron energies of the order of 250 MeV with modest input laser intensities (~0.77 × 1018 W cm−2) and low plasma densities (n = 5 × 1018 cm−3).