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'I told the truth': Michael Cheika half-time spray behind Leicester fight-back
By PA
Leicester head coach Michael Cheika revealed a half-time rocket helped his side edge an eight-try thriller against Gloucester.
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The visitors, playing some high-quality and enterprising rugby, built a 19-8 interval lead with Max Llewellyn, likely to be included in the Wales squad for their autumn internationals, scoring a hat-trick of tries.
Freddie Thomas got the other, with Santi Carreras adding three conversions as their attacking flair rattled Tigers.
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However, it was a totally different story after the interval as the home pack took control to clock up four tries from Josh Bassett, Dan Kelly, Ollie Hassell-Collins and Handre Pollard, who also kicked a penalty and three conversions for a match tally of 14 points.
After seeing his side claim the Ed Slater Cup, Cheika said: “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.
“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.
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“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.”
Gloucester head coach George Skivington was frustrated that his side had secured just two points.
“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.
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“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.”
Skivington also praised hat-trick hero Llewellyn ahead of tomorrow’s Wales squad being announced.
He said: “I’m unbelievably happy at how he’s developed in the past 12 months and all I can say is that Wales must have some strong stock if they don’t find room to pick him.”
