Richard Cockerill held up his hands and said Leicester Tigers "got what we deserved" in defeat at Bath on Saturday.
Tigers conceded five tries in a 45-0 defeat in Round 3 which ended their winning start to the Aviva Premiership season.
“We couldn’t cope with the set-piece, we had no parity there, and it is always going to be a struggle when you’re on the back foot,” said Cockerill.
"We were beaten across the board. We had our opportunities too but weren’t good enough to take them and we got punished for that. Credit to Bath, we got what we deserved. Bath are very good and they played very well. It was not for lack of effort, but we played poorly and could not cope with them.”
Tigers were dealt a blow on Saturday when Anthony Allen and Manu Tuilagi were ruled out of the team, joining a number of other senior players on the injured list.
Cockerill said: “Manu and Anth were not right to play, they have niggles that we want to get rid of, but we have got to get them back on the field, along with a lot of others who are missing today.
“Obviously if you have the quality missing that we have at some point it will hurt you. It has not cost us in the last two weeks but it catches up with you at some stage.
“But we don’t want to use excuses, we need to play better. I’m bitterly disappointed with how we played. I take responsibility for that, we will deal with it. Of course it hurts any time you play as poorly as that. We will have to suck it up and get on with it.”
Tigers lost Tom Youngs and Niall Morris to injury during the second half and lost scrum-half David Mele to a red card in the 78th minute.
Tigers conceded five tries in a 45-0 defeat in Round 3 which ended their winning start to the Aviva Premiership season.
“We couldn’t cope with the set-piece, we had no parity there, and it is always going to be a struggle when you’re on the back foot,” said Cockerill.
"We were beaten across the board. We had our opportunities too but weren’t good enough to take them and we got punished for that. Credit to Bath, we got what we deserved. Bath are very good and they played very well. It was not for lack of effort, but we played poorly and could not cope with them.”
Tigers were dealt a blow on Saturday when Anthony Allen and Manu Tuilagi were ruled out of the team, joining a number of other senior players on the injured list.
Cockerill said: “Manu and Anth were not right to play, they have niggles that we want to get rid of, but we have got to get them back on the field, along with a lot of others who are missing today.
“Obviously if you have the quality missing that we have at some point it will hurt you. It has not cost us in the last two weeks but it catches up with you at some stage.
“But we don’t want to use excuses, we need to play better. I’m bitterly disappointed with how we played. I take responsibility for that, we will deal with it. Of course it hurts any time you play as poorly as that. We will have to suck it up and get on with it.”
Tigers lost Tom Youngs and Niall Morris to injury during the second half and lost scrum-half David Mele to a red card in the 78th minute.
