Leicester Tigers head coach Richard Cockerill conceded his side were rather fortunate to beat Bath.
Tigers were fortunate admits head coach
Leicester Tigers head coach Richard Cockerill conceded his side were rather fortunate to emerge victorious against Bath at Welford Road on Saturday.
The Tigers had to rely on a late Andy Goode penalty and an injury-time breakaway try from Matt Smith to secure a hard-fought 26-26 success that saw them start with back-to-back wins for the first time in six seasons.
However, acting supremo Cockerill admitted that Bath could easily consider themselves hard done by, while insisting his side had much to work on in the weeks ahead.
"We could have easily lost the game," he declared. "If I was Bath I would be hugely disappointed. We were lucky to win.
"We have great players across the board and the frustrating thing is that we were flat, didn't look after the ball and didn't do the simple things well.
"We seemed to turn up just expecting to win because we were at Welford Road.
"We played poorly and still won. Hopefully this will be a kick up the backside for us.
"But you can't fault the commitment. We could have easily lost the game, but we dug in and worked hard."
Leicester had to make do without England's Julian White for virtually the entire match after he sustained an early neck injury and went on to lose their other prop, Boris Stankovic, in the 49th minute.
That saw match referee David Rose go to uncontested scrums - a factor that left Bath coach Steve Meehan infuriated.
"It's disappointing that a game like this should come to that," he said.
"I was disappointed with the way the referee dealt with lineouts as well, but our major problem is our lack of application in the ruck."
Bath were severely inconvenienced with both skipper Zak Feaunati and Nick Abendanon forced out of the game, but Meehan refused to attribute the reverse to their loss.
"You can't allow for that many disruptions, but I'm still disappointed we didn't come away with some points."
