Rugby, Australian Football: Wells aims for better

Leicester head coach John Wells admitted his side could hardly play any worse during his the 23-8 Heineken Cup defeat at Biarritz - but was still positive after the loss.

Wells was desperately unhappy with the Tigers' first-half display but far more satisfied with their performance in the second.

He summed up the feelings within the Welford Road camp by stating: "We can go away knowing that we can't play a lot worse than this."

Tigers trailed 20-3 after a woeful opening period. Wells confessed on behalf of his side: "We played well enough in the second half but by then we were already out of the game.

"Biarritz played well enough to win but we struggled to put any kind of consistency together.

"We restricted them to three points after the break and made sure they didn't get a full five pool points. We let ourselves down particularly in the first half. They took to the game and we did not.

"At one point it looked as if we would be on the wrong end of a big meeting but we came back at them in the second half."

Wells brought on the Tuilagi brothers Alex and Henry after the break, dramatically adding impetus to the Tigers' ball-carrying capabilities.

Wells said: "We made a few changes after half-time that helped us get some go-forward. Had we had a bit more pace we would have scored a try at the end.

"Whether we deserved to be in the game or not after our first-half performance is another matter. We might have scored two more tries and had we done so we would have got a bonus point out of the game.

"But we didn't deserve to win. We kicked badly and gave up possession too easily."

Sportinglife