Leicester Tigers interim coach Geordan Murphy feels there is still room for improvement despite his side’s Premiership victory over Sale at Welford Road on Sunday.
The Tigers claimed a 19-15 triumph but were outscored by three tries to one and secured the win thanks largely to the goal-kicking of George Ford, who finished with a 14-point haul courtesy of four penalties and a conversion.
And Murphy admitted afterwards that although his side were triumphant, they have plenty to work on.
“Obviously it is great to get the win and the points, but I don’t think our performance was great,” he said.
“It is a bitter-sweet one. The points are important and the win is important but I thought out performance was probably below par.
“I thought our defence was better. We conceded early and it was from unstructured play. The ball was all over the place and Sale are good enough with the bodies they have that if you give them unstructured ball they will score and Marland Yarde did a very good job.
“They scored two tries from line-out drives which is obviously an area we will have to improve on. We can probably tighten that up a little but easier than our open-field defence but I thought that was very good at times.”
Meanwhile, Sale Sharks director of rugby Steve Diamond was left to rue some missed opportunities.
“We did enough to get a little bit closer in that game,” he said.
“There were a couple of instances where we were on their tryline and we couldn’t convert for one reason or another.
“A couple of decisions didn’t go our way, which happens, but the positives are we were difficult to beat and that’s what we haven’t been in a couple of games.
“I’m really happy with the way we’ve trained this week and the way they’ve turned up, but I just think we’ve left a little bit in the changing room again – not in endeavour, just in application and skill.
“They’ve got some injury problems as have we, so in the last ten minutes I thought we could get on top of them, but George Ford controlled the game pretty well for them.”