Richard Cockerill refused to be too downhearted despite Leicester's surprise home defeat against Exeter.
Tigers boss staying clam after opening day defeat
Leicester Tigers boss Richard Cockerill refused to be too downhearted despite his side's surprising opening-day defeat at home against the Exeter Chiefs.
Although the Tigers had 11 players out on international duty and another three injured, they were still expected to have enough to put away Exeter at Welford Road to start their Aviva Premiership campaign.
Cockerill would not blame his depleted squad for Exeter's slender 30-28 victory, and insisted he would not be going away from the game too downhearted.
"We could have snuck it at the end," said Cockerill. "The battle was good and we just fell short at the end although you have to give credit to Exeter and what they came with.
"I'm not downhearted at all. We have a lot of blokes missing - and I'm not using that as an excuse - but I was pleased with the way we battled away. We will review the tape on Monday and we have to improve on some bits, there is no getting away from it.
"The attitude was outstanding, our commitment was outstanding which put us in the mix at the end to potentially win it."
Drop-goals
18-year-old fly-half protege George Ford could have won the game for Leicester had he not failed with two highly-pressurised drop-goal attempts late on, but he did not get the blame from his coach.
"If Fordy dropped the goal at the end, it is a different conversation," Cockerill added. "I don't blame him.
"He misses those drop-goals under a huge amount of pressure. He's capable of doing it and good enough but on the day he didn't. I don't see that as a negative in his game. That's life.
"George Ford had a good game and, if you get it, you are a hero."
There was nothing other than a big smile on the face of Exeter coach Rob Baxter, though, after a momentous victory for the Chiefs who pushed the Tigers extremely close 12 months ago.
Delight
They lost last year in their debut season in the Premiership, but managed to hang on this time around to claim a huge scalp despite Leicester's absentees.
"We are fantastically pleased to have started the season with four points but, at the same time, we are aware that it is a pretty heavily depleted Leicester squad," said Baxter.
"Having said that, it was still very tough. That is two years in a row where we have got away from Leicester on the scoreboard and they very nearly got back to us again today.
"If there is anything I am a little disappointed with it is that we opened up some space on the scoreboard and then made some relatively soft errors.
"But something I am really pleased with is that we didn't crack when the pressure came on. We held it together enough to force a win. So I'm massively pleased but I am still aware that it was not Leicester at full tilt and we still have a lot to work on."
