Richard Cockerill has been left less than impressed by Billy Twelvetrees' decision to sign for Gloucester © Getty Images

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Matches: Harlequins 9 - 19 Leicester Tigers

Players/Officials: Richard Cockerill | Billy Twelvetrees

Tournaments/Tours: Anglo-Welsh Cup

Teams: Gloucester Rugby | Harlequins | Leicester Tigers

Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill has Billy Twelvetrees for failing to inform him to his face that he had signed for Gloucester.

Twelvetrees' imminent switch to Kingsholm was confirmed on Saturday and Cockerill, speaking after the Tigers' 19-9 Anglo-Welsh Cup win over Harlequins later in the day, was less than happy with how the centre had handled his exit announcement.

"Billy's chosen to move on. That's his choice; it's disappointing but that's life," the Leicester boss said. "[But] I'd rather deal with people face-to-face and be up front.

"George Skivington is leaving: he came and spoke to me and explained his reasons why. I shook his hand and said 'thanks very much' and wished him all the best. That's how I prefer to do business. That's okay.

"Billy's a young man and he'll learn to do things differently as he matures - as I have."

Turning his attention to his side's success at the Stoop, Cockerill was impressed with the performances of Andy Forsyth and Alex Lewington, both of whom dotted, as well as Dante Mama.

"It was a bit of an odd game really, both sides trying to play and not a huge amount of structure to any of it," he said. "I thought [Andy] Forsyth and Dante Mama, who normally plays at Loughborough Students, did really well and [Alex] Lewington's got some pace."

Meanwhile, Harlequins head coach John Kingston was not a happy man after watching his side slump to a fourth defeat in six outings in all competitions.

"That was not to the levels that we expect and aspire to," he said. "Yes there's a lot of players out there who are not playing regularly but we're a squad and they will be aspiring to put their hand up. Several of them will be very disappointed because they don't go out there not to perform well.

"Nobody in their right minds is going to expect a team of any sort to carry on with the start we had. We have been winning one losing one in the last few weeks against really very competitive opposition. We've got an awful lot ahead of us though and an awful lot of positive things to look forward to."