London Welsh head coach Justin Burnell said his side were hard done by after crashing to a fourth heavy defeat of the season at the Kassam Stadium last night.

Welsh fell away dramatically in the final quarter to lose 46-10 to Gloucester and stay bottom of the Aviva Premiership table.

And although he didn’t want to be dragged into criticising referee Luke Pearce directly, it was clear Burnell felt aggrieved.

“It’s frustrating, at 12-10 at half-time, we were more than in the game,” said Burnell.

“But it was crucial decisions, and not just by ourselves.

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“It’s tough, especially when you look at it afterwards – 20 penalties against us to seven.

“I am too professional to get into a discussion about this, but obviously that’s something that we as a team and as management have to sit down tomorrow and review from this game.

“I certainly didn’t see that (penalty count).

“We were simply making the same decisions as the opposition.”

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