Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill will not face disciplinary ...

“When sides come here and just cheat, cheat and cheat… it makes it

difficult,” said Cockerill. “They are clearly being coached not to engage at

the scrummage.”

Leicester’s statement sought to explain the context of Cockerill remarks.

“Richard spoke in response to specific questions regarding events in the set

of scrummages close to the Sale Sharks try-line which eventually led to the

award of a penalty try to Leicester Tigers.

“He believed there was a deliberate attempt by the Sale front row to not

engage and/or withdraw from an engagement at the scrum in this phase of

play, and in his view this was, potentially, an act of dangerous play and,

therefore, potentially, a penalty offence and a yellow card.

“His comments about the referee were specific to that incident. Richard’s view

was that the match official, having previously refereed only seven Aviva

Premiership fixtures, would not necessarily have come across this offence

before. In retrospect Richard says he could have more accurately

characterised the incident as ‘gamesmanship’, and also that there was no

intention to question the integrity of either the match official or of

opposite number, Steve Diamond of Sale Sharks.”

In Sunday’s league action, play-off contenders Leicester and Bath meet at

Welford Road, while Exeter head to Adams Park for an appointment with Wasps.

“Points now are important because there will be a four-week break before we

come back into the Premiership and you want to have the best chance of

having a run of games that will really fire you up the league,” Rob Baxter,

the Exeter head coach, said.

“In the past, we’ve always had a run in that final third of the season, and

again we just want to make sure it means something. The more points we can

accrue now, the more it will mean come the end of the season.

“We are in the top half of the league, which is where we want to be, but now

we have a very important game against Wasps which will probably play a large

part in what we are going to be fighting for at the end of the season.

“We like the fixtures we end the season with, but the quality that we put

together now is going to be equally as important.

“If you said to me, we would achieve the level of performance we have done

over the last six weeks I would be very happy, but what we are disappointed

about is that we haven’t won a few more games.”

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Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill will not face disciplinary ...