How Did That Happen?

The lesson of this defeat must be learned. No matter how well you are playing you are never in control until you put daylight between yourselves and the opposition.

That is specially applicable when you take on sides like Leicester whose game management is legendary, and who have the ability to snatch a victory no matter how likely that looked a quarter of an hour ago.

And so it was that Tigers left Kingsholm with a 19-18 victory, which left a bitter taste for the Cherry and White faithful.

We were ectastic in the first half when we scored two tries in as many minutes. James Hook got the first, which he converted, and then Ben Morgan went over in the corner  - and, yes, we got away with a forward pass in that one.

Ayereze pulled one back for Tigers but we led 15-7 up uintil the last ten minutes  and looked comfortable throughout. Crucially, we failed to add to our tally.

Tigers narrowed the gap through an uncoverted try from Veainu to set up a narrow closing phase. Our worst fears were realised when the TV match official was asked to rule on whether Ben Morgan had pulled the Tigers winger back as he may, or may not, have been on the end of a scoring pass.

Ben went to the bin and Tigers took their late, late chance through Logovi'i Mulipola with Tommy Bell landing the curical conversion from wide out. That really was a sickener but credit for his skill.

David Humphreys summed it up at his media conference: "We got ourselves into a position to win the game. The first 15 minutes of the second half, we had a lot of territory and possession, but didn't manage to take those opportunities.

"Against the top teams, you have got to take opportunities as they came along in the opposition 22."