It was an opening half an hour to forget for Nottingham as their Premiership opponents raced into a 38 point lead at Mattioli Woods Welford Road. But, after finally establishing a foothold in the final 10 minutes of the first half, the Archers were good value for the three tries they scored in reply, until the hosts took it up a notch in the closing stages to seal a nine score victory.

First, Kyle Hatherall punched a hole in the Nottingham defence and offloaded inside to Joseph Woodward to cross under the posts. Ben Volavola added the extras.

Volavola then added five more points to his tally as he broke from halfway soon after to dot down wide left. He couldn’t convert his own try.

After a break down the right wing the ball was worked inside by the Tigers and a crossfield kick pass found home skipper Finn Carnduff in space wide left to go over in the corner. Then Leicester hooker Finn Theobald-Thomas received the ball back from a lineout 10 metres out and spun his way through the defensive line to score.

As the game entered its second quarter Leicester couldn’t quite get the pushover from a lineout but a couple of pick and goes later and Tom Manz increased the lead.

The Tigers then declined a penalty on the Nottingham 22 in favour of a five metre scrum after Jack Stapley had tidied up a crossfield kick but was taken back into his own in-goal in the process. A couple of drives were stopped short until scrum half Tom Whiteley sniped in with the left hand upright as protection.

It was only after the half hour mark that the Archers managed any form of possession in Tigers territory. With the aid of a couple of penalties they were able to set up camp on the home side’s try line with Sebastian Ferreira eventually punching it over to get Nottingham on the board.

As the time ticked away Nottingham’s Gwyn Parks looked set to kick for touch from a penalty in his own 22 but instead opted for a tap that ultimately released Levi Roper on the left wing. After advancing into the Leicester half, Nottingham won another penalty as Hatherall pushed Roper to the ground, an act for which the back rower received a yellow card. With the clock in the red Craig Hammond’s men had one final chance to add points but were held up over the try line, making the half time score Leicester Tigers 38-7 Nottingham.

Poor discipline by the home side allowed Nottingham to gain momentum and territory in the opening ten minutes of the second period as they won two scrum penalties and one for playing the nine. A five metre lineout set up Levi Roper to double the Archers tally.

Leicester didn’t learn their lesson and a couple more penalties allowed Nottingham to continue playing in the Leicester half, culminating less than 10 minutes later in a crossfield kick finding David Williams in space on the right to go over for the Archers’ third.

As the half wore on the home side sorted out their penalty woes and started to crank up the pressure on Nottingham once again. On 71 minutes, Carnduff wriggled his way free to add his second. Almost immediately George Pearson brought up Leicester’s half century of points as he ran in an intercept try from the halfway line.

Nottingham kept playing until the last in an effort to gain the try bonus point but they only succeeded in kicking it into the hands of Pearson, who danced his way between a number of purple shirts to make the final score Leicester 57-19 Nottingham.

The Archers were disappointed with how they let the game get away from them, as described by forward Jacob Wright: “We let ourselves down in some areas in the first half, we weren’t quite at the races and we let them get on top of us a bit. Second half we got after them a bit more, put a few points on the board and built a bit of  confidence.”

And on looking for the try bonus point: “We had to go back to playing our style of rugby to get in the game and we were pushing for the fourth, but they were shutting us down at the end there and it was tough how it ended up.”