Richard Cockerill believes Leicester can finish the regular season top of the Guinness Premiership following their 31-7 rout of Newcastle.
Tigers boss delighted with impressive performance
Richard Cockerill believes Leicester can finish the regular season top of the Guinness Premiership following their 31-7 rout of Newcastle.
The Tigers scored four tries in the first-half to the kill the game off and give Cockerill the chance to run the bench after the break.
Leicester are now three points clear of Northampton with two matches remaining although the Saints have a game in hand.
"We want to finish top of the table," said Cockerill. "We did that last year and we want to retain it. It's a tough league week in, week out and we want to finish top of it again.
"We're a good side and if we play well, we will cause any side problems, but the focus has to be on doing the simple things well which we did today and that bodes well for the semi-finals.
"I thought the first half today was some of the best rugby we have played for some time, but when you're 28-0 up, the bonus point is assured, it's difficult to turn round and face the wind and rain in the second half and repeat that. We knew the second half was going to be a real battle.
"We're delighted with the five points and we played with a good tempo to get those points and stay up there in the top two."
Significance
For Newcastle, defeat means they remain in the relegation fight clouded by the victory for Leeds at London Irish.
"We now have to go to Sale next weekend and try to get something from that, but the Leeds v Worcester game also assumes massive significance," said Steve Bates, Falcons' director of rugby.
"It was certainly a game of two halves today and we shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times in that first half and Leicester dominated as the half got away from us.
"We just lost out in the contact situation too easily in the first half. We changed that in the second half and stopped them getting over the gain line and that made it a much closer battle.
"We had to work quite hard in the set-piece with our regular front row missing but the lads who came in did very well and in the second half we showed a bit of character."
