Mike Cudmore believes his Ealing Trailfinders side are getting a raw deal from refs which is not helping their bid to find their first win in the Championship.

Friday night's 20-5 defeat at home to Plymouth Albion made it seven defeats in a row in the league and nine on the trot if you include British & Irish Cup fixtures.

Ealing's director rugby said after the latest defeat: “I haven't said anything for the last three games, but now is probably the right time to say it – I think we're being refereed slightly differently.

“When you're bottom of the league, referees look at you in a different way sometimes. The expectation is that you're going to make more mistakes than the other team and I felt a little bit that way tonight.

“I'm not saying it's deliberate, but there's a lot of penalties I thought they should have got against them tonight. There are inconsistencies.

“Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's why we didn't win tonight, but it all adds up.”

Cudmore added: “It's frustrating. If we were being outplayed, we'd all look at each other and say we were in trouble, but we're plying enough good rugby to win games.

“I think this game was the story of the season so far. I don't believe these teams are better than us. The difference between the two sides at the moment is when teams play us, they are very clinical and we are not clinical enough and we make errors at the wrong times.

“We're getting enough possession – tonight we probably edged the possession stats, as we did last week - but the bottom line is we're not getting the results.

“We've got to keep challenging ourselves so that we get in those areas we get something out of it, because at the moment, we're not getting enough.”

The Trailfinders boss added:“We had a very full and frank meeting on Monday night. We were all very disappointed after last Friday and we wanted a reaction.

"We got that, but not the rewards we need. But it's coming. I know that on our day, and when we get it right, we can get what we want, which is a positive result.”