Leicester acting head coach Richard Cockerill was ecstatic as his depleted Tigers side won at Bristol.
Leicester boss full of praise after victory at Bristol.
Leicester's acting head coach Richard Cockerill was ecstatic as his depleted Tigers side won at Bristol for a first opening-day victory for seven years.
Without 12 players due to the World Cup in France, Leicester still managed to come away from a tough season-opener at Bristol with an impressive 26-13 victory.
Cockerill lavished praise on his side after inflicting a first opening-day Premiership defeat on Bristol.
"We have not won here in seven years and it is a fantastic start for us and I can't hide my satisfaction with that," said Cockerill.
"Bristol are a very good team and I have a huge respect for Richard Hill as a coach for obvious reasons.
"I knew that if we played to our potential and we played tactically the right way then we could certainly get a win.
"The scoreline maybe flattered us a little but the boys controlled the ball exceptionally well. We played in the right areas of the field and we took our chances.
"Fair play to our lads in the end everybody thought that we deserved to win.
"The way that the referee was controlling the game if you had the ball and kept hold of it you were going to get some penalties and be rewarded for that. We'd done our homework on the referee and Bristol.
"We scored a relatively opportunist try in the first half through Tom Varndell which he finished very well.
"There was some great work from our forwards which nullified Bristol pretty much for large periods of the game. We have worked more on our defence in pre-season with [assistant coaches] Andy Key and Neil Back doing good jobs.
"We are not big names as a coaching team but we understand the culture of this club. I think I know what it takes to win games but that is easy to say when you win games because it could have gone either way at half time."
Absentees
Cockerill was especially pleased with the win considering it came with so many of the club's stars representing their countries at the World Cup.
"I have a huge amount of respect for the Bristol team," he added. "They are a good side and this is a hard place to come and play. We have lost here with some very big names in our side and today, for some of our guys it was a great start of their debuts.
"Also a debut win is a great start to the season when we are missing so many players - it is fantastic. We had tried to be quite smart with our recruitment but we have virtually a whole pack of forwards to come back [from the World Cup] and I am looking forward to having those guys back.
"We are at home to Bath next week, they had a good win on Saturday, so I am not going to dwell too much on this game. I am happy, the players are satisfied knowing that there is still more to come from us to be honest.
"I am looking forward to getting back to Welford Road and playing in front of a home crowd."
Poor start
Bristol head coach Richard Hill was very disappointed with the start his side made to the season, with only four of their players missing on international duty.
"It was very disappointing. It is a very bad start for us," said Hill.
"There were lots of errors. We couldn't guarantee set-piece possession and when we did we couldn't keep hold of it. The difference was that Leicester did both of these and put pressure on us. We would expect to win this one at home against a virtual Leicester second team.
"We'll have to get a bit better and work harder. We hadn't played well in pre-season so it is not entirely surprising.
"It is going to take a little while before we get in to it judging by that. We are not playing particularly well at the moment and I can't really put my finger on why.
"Against sides like Leicester you sometimes need some brute force to go forward. They defended well and tackled strongly. We had nobody really to get us through that first up tackle line."