Cockerill rages at officiating as title-chase pressure intensifies

Cockerill was furious that Small sin-binned only one of Gloucester’s forwards, tight-head prop Shaun Knight, for offences at the scrum where Leicester were completely dominant.

He said he would ask Ed Morrison, the RFU’s head of elite referee development, to look at a video of the match and insisted that Leicester did not get their just reward for dominating the scrums.

Cockerill, a former Leicester and England hooker, said: “I am lost for words. I have spent 30 years in the middle of scrums. I coach it every day.

“We try to be really professional and then we have to deal with that.

“It’s just not good enough. It has got to end, enough is enough.

“He (Small) needs to look at it and see his faults and try and improve. That’s the whole point of coaching, whether you are a referee or a rugby coach.

“Today’s points (for the win) are great, you have to win these games. If you get beaten I don’t mind, but I want the rugby to decide, not the bloke in the middle making poor decisions.

“They need to educate them and Ed Morrison and Rob Andrew (RFU professional rugby director) need to make sure they do that. And if they don’t do it right they don’t get game, same as our blokes.”

Small showed yellow cards to four players; Leicester’s Ben Youngs and George Ford for killing the ball and Gloucester’s Will James, also for an offence at the breakdown.

Only Knight was binned for an offence at the scrum where the Gloucester penalty count reached double figures.

Cockerill said: “I’m disappointed. We get two blokes in the bin for breakdown offences and they get penalised 10 times in the scrum, get destroyed for most of the game and get one bloke in the bin.

“Where is the consistency? We have got a massively dominant set piece because we spend money there and coach it and today we did not get the reward we should have.

“Guessing is the word I’d use and it’s not good enough. Big games decide championships and European spots. You have to get it right.

“I spoke to Ed Morrison yesterday about scrums and line-outs and yet they (referees) do whatever they want.

“Sides come here and push the boundaries, fair play to them. But they don’t get refereed. Referees don’t want to be seen to be favouring Leicester at Welford Road.

“We are in the professional era and we do a lot of homework on referees, so we know exactly what is going to happen.

“And then the scrums are refereed so poorly we don’t get the reward because he doesn’t want to keep penalising them for cheating.”

Gloucester director of rugby Nigel Davies disagreed with Cockerill but admitted his side got beaten at the scrum time and that the result was fair.

He said: “It was a hard-fought game. We led for large parts, which is testimony to how they work hard for each other.

“If we are honest we were second best at the set piece.

“It was probably a fair result although we could have snuck it at the end.”

Leicester’s win, thanks to a try from former Gloucester centre Anthony Allen and 12 points from the boots of George Ford and Geordan Murphy, moved them two places to second for 24 hours, before Saracens beat Northampton yesterday.

Gloucester’s points all came from fly-half Freddie Burns, who kicked four penalties, and they almost sneaked a win in the dying moments but were twice thwarted on Leicester’s line by some ferocious defence by the Tigers.

Relieved Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall insisted the intervention of the woodwork led to the correct result in yesterday’s 
17-16 Aviva Premiership victory over Northampton at Stadium MK.

Saints fly-half Stephen Myler struck the crossbar with the final kick of the match to ensure Saracens held on for a win that restores them to second place in the table. It was a valiant attempt from Myler taken five metres from inside his own half, but McCall felt it was the right outcome in light of Saracens’ superiority.

“Of course it would have been a sick feeling to lose it at the end,” said McCall.

“Sometimes you lose and that is fine but when you are on top, like we felt we were on top, it would have been disappointing.

“At the same time sometimes that is your own fault, if you have got ahead of yourselves and not done things quite right.”

Northampton had fought back after slipping 11-0 behind by scoring 16 unanswered points through a try from flanker Phil Dowson and 11 points from fly-half Myler.

The result drops Saints to sixth in the Premiership, two points adrift of the play-offs, but their Halifax-born director of rugby Mallinder remains bullish over their chances of returning to the title mix.

“There will be a few people that have written us off. We quite like that and there’s a long way to go,” he said.

“We’re looking forward to the second half of the season.”

A brilliant try from scrum-half Joe Simpson was the highlight of London Wasps’ bonus-point 
34-15 victory as they did the Premiership double over London Welsh this season.

Simpson had an outstanding game as Wasps came from behind with tries from wing Elliot Daly, replacement prop Will Taylor and, right at the end, a fourth try for wing Tom Varndell.

Welsh fly-half Gordon Ross kicked all his side’s points with five penalties, while Wasps fly-half Nicky Robinson landed three penalties, Daly booted one and replacement stand-off Stephen Jones kicked the only conversion of the match.

London Irish were dragged deeper into the relegation mire after champions Harlequins ground out a victory in front of 82,000 fans at Twickenham.

The Exiles were in touch for 78 minutes but left empty-handed after a late penalty try from Harlequins’ dominant pack denied them a losing bonus point.

Exiles head coach Brian Smith said: “We have a rock solid coaching staff, we have rock solid senior players and it is up to us to make sure the younger players are rock solid.”

The conversation of a penalty try three minutes from time denied Exeter their first victory over west country rivals Bath as they drew 12-12 in front of a sell-out crowd of 10,744 at Sandy Park.