Michael Cheika reveals how Leicester Tigers crucially gave Handre Pollard a greater ‘platform’

Leicester Tigers head coach Michael Cheika revealed that a powerful half-time team talk was key to their 29-26 win over Gloucester to win the Ed Slater Cup in the Premiership on Sunday.

Cheika’s side was down 19-8 at the break but managed to launch an impressive second-half effort heavily inspired by Springboks game-driver Handre Pollard who scored 14 points including a well-worked tap-and-go try.

Get Pollard a platform

The former Wallabies and Los Pumas boss knew he had to stoke a fire in his team to provide a better platform for veteran Pollard to have a greater influence and the Tigers did just that by increasing their aggression in the contact point.

“I told the truth at half-time as we seemed to have the idea that victory would be handed to us and it just doesn’t happen that way,” Cheika said.

“Gloucester are a fine side and if you stand off them and let them play they’ll hurt you, and that’s what we did.

“We showed a lot more physicality in the second half and tackled aggressively so Handre (Pollard) was able to have a platform to show what he could do by having a greater share of possession.

“However, we should have kicked on when we went 10 points clear but credit to Gloucester for hanging on in there and preventing us from doing so.”

Handre Pollard finishes outlandish Leicester trick play as Tigers fight back to beat Gloucester

Missed opportunity

Gloucester’s head coach George Skivington admits he was disappointed not to win having held such a strong position in the game at a point.

“Before the season started we’d have probably taken two points but I feel this was an opportunity missed not to have taken more,” he said.

“Our attack was really good but we still left three or four tries out there and individual errors at crucial times cost us.

“Tigers came out firing in the second half but in that first 10-minute period our mistakes put them in a position where they could really make it count.

“Our line-out was poor last week and we lost a few today, but I’m still frustrated with only two points as I believe we were better than that.”

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