And while it was a loss that also marked the end of Michael Cheika’s one-year reign at the helm of the East Midlands club, the decorated head coach could only reflect on what the loss meant to those Tigers greats on their way out.<\/p>\n
“I just feel disappointed and sorry that I didn’t prepare the guys in a good enough way to get them what they deserved today,” the Australian said.<\/p>\n
“I love this group of guys and love the club, and I’m so proud of the players for the way they stayed in it right to the end.<\/p>\n
“We gave ourselves a chance to win it right at the end, but unfortunately it didn’t go our way.”<\/p>\n
Cheika also made every effort to avoid getting himself into “strife” when talking about decisions throughout the game – most pointedly Cole’s sin-binning – and said he would take it up with the RFU’s officiating chief Paul Hull as a “final bit of banter”.<\/p>\n
With two-time World Cup-winning South African fly-half Handre Pollard also moving on in the summer, the decider was seen as the “last dance” for an all-star ensemble.<\/p>\n
Pollard’s high-profile three years at Mattioli Woods Welford Road ended empty-handed but he said that lack of silverware paled in comparison to what Tigers failed to accomplish for two of the club’s finest servants.<\/p>\n
“It’s very disappointing, and not so much about losing the game and the trophy but it’s more about sending Ben Youngs and Dan Cole and those guys off with a loss in the final,” Pollard said.<\/p>\n
“That’s the one that gets you.<\/p>\n
“We’ll have great memories with this team and I’ve enjoyed every minute.”<\/p>\n
For Youngs, who spoke to BBC Radio 5 Live after the match with his children and other family crowded around him, missing out on a sixth Premiership title will not stop him cherishing one of English rugby’s greatest careers.<\/p>\n
“The ink is dry, I’m proud of my contribution and I’ll miss it,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But I’ll forever be a Leicester fan now.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And while it was a loss that also marked the end of Michael Cheika’s one-year reign at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-184919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114684273871836025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}