Adam Thompstone claimed a hat-trick of tries in his first start since his summer move from London Irish, and Toby Flood was successful with all of his six attempts at goal, but Cockerill spread the credit for victory throughout the dressing room.
“We got a bit of criticism after last week’s game against Harlequins, but I thought that was a really good performance today,” said Tigers director of rugby Cockerill.
“We can look for excuses but we just didn’t play as well as we could last week. You get punished if you’re not right and that’s what happened.
“It has been a tough week, but the players wanted to sort it. I thought we showed a great attitude across the board, from the senior players to the young blokes and the coaches.
“This was a game we could have lost if we didn’t get it right. Before the game we would have taken the win but with a quality performance like that we probably ended it by being disappointed not to get the bonus point.”
Tigers were forced into making changes to the line-up in the hours approaching kick-off after Scott Hamilton and George Chuter were withdrawn due to injury and Boris Stankovich was suffering from illness.
“Guys dropping out can be unsettling but the players who came in did an excellent job and it was an all-round good performance from the team,” said Cockerill.
“These things happen, but we weren’t worried about people missing, the game was going to be about the squad as a whole and they were very good across the board.”
