‘No excuses’ – Michael Cheika pinpoints why Leicester Tigers lost to Sale Sharks
Michael Cheika reacts to Leicester Tigers' defeat at Sale Sharks.
Leicester Tigers head coach Michael Cheika believes his team can have “no excuses” after they fell to a disappointing 39-25 Premiership loss to Sale Sharks on Sunday.
The defeat, just the team’s second of the league campaign, means that Bath and Bristol Bears have opened up a five-point gap on the Tigers after seven rounds of action.
Nicky Smith, Freddie Steward and George Martin scored for Leicester but six tries from Sale in response saw them seal a bonus-point win at Salford Community Stadium.
‘No excuses’
After the loss, head coach Cheika lamented their performance at scrum time, among other facets of play, and insists they must improve as a team if they are to progress.
“When you get to this block of the competition there’s a lot more urgency around things. We did good work in some patches but, for us, the fundamentals of our game weren’t there,” he said.
“The scrum, conceded far too many penalties there, the maul we were dominated in and defensively we weren’t at our level.
“Therefore, once those things are in place, it doesn’t matter how good your attack is or whatever as those other fundamentals are the basis of our game.”
He added: “No excuses – this is what’s required in this section of the company. What got us here in the first block is not what is going to get us to where we need to be at the end of the second block.
“It can be a positive thing for us to understand there’s another level we’ve got to climb up to and be regular at because tonight, although we had some moments where we are ok, we had many were we were not good enough.”
Leicester started the Premiership clash well as Wales international prop Smith’s try and a Handre Pollard penalty moved them 8-0 in front before Sale began to turn the screw.
“We had momentum early on and probably needed to score another try,” Cheika admitted.
“Then when they had momentum, we didn’t do enough to stem that.
‘Good lesson’
“We had a couple of opportunities and we had a couple of slips in the weather but everything counts: they are the conditions you’ve got to play in.
“It’s a good lesson for us to receive, that it’s time to front up a bit in the physicality of the game and in the fundamentals.”
Leicester Tigers will now turn their attention to Round One of the Champions Cup and a difficult visit to take on hugely impressive Top 14 outfit Bordeaux-Begles this Sunday.
