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ROWLAND Phillips pointed to some encouraging signs, despite London Welsh slipping to a 12th straight defeat of the season.

The Exiles’ defence coach stressed there was still “a lot of work to do”, but felt their performance in the 26-5 home defeat to Leicester boded well.

“We work hard as a coaching group,” he said.

“We certainly saw strong signs today of improvement.

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“We don’t want to be good one week, poor the next.

“We want to get real honest consistency throughout the group and be able to build on this performance and be able to test ourselves against Northampton next week.”

Phillips added: “It was a much better performance. I thought we had a lot more control in the game.

“There is still a lot of work to do, but we contained the Leicester attack.

“Once we start to get a bit more confidence and belief, we can develop our game a bit quicker.”

Phillips added: “The driving maul had a massive effect on the game because of the three tries,” he said.

“We know we need to improve that area.

“But we have got to make sure we don’t put them in those positions. I think that is more important.”

According to Phillips, Opeti Fonua had “a very strong game”.

He said: “We know Leicester have got a lot of good ball carriers and a strong defence, but with Opeti, when he was carrying, he was a handful.

“He crossed the gain line, which allowed us to keep more ball and play more rugby. He was a very important player for us.”

Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill said: “I am pleased with the result, but the performance was pretty average from us.

“We were pretty inaccurate and kicked poorly.

“Credit to Welsh, they tackled well and made us work very hard.

“They took the lead and made us struggle.

“But when we got a foothold on the game, our quality told.”

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