The fourth meeting between these two teams this season was, for the first 40 minutes, an even but rather disjointed affair, littered with penalties by both sides. Nottingham’s greater experience told in the second period, however, and they used their increasing scrum dominance to lay the platform to ultimately outscore their Premiership opponents by six tries to three.

It was from an Archers infringement right in front of the posts, when Antonio Harris’s careless offload exposed Jai Johal, that Leicester nearly got on the board inside the opening two minutes. Tom Threlfall, who had appeared for Nottingham in their last outing, but was now at fly half for the Tigers, opted for the kick to the corner but the following maul stalled so danger was averted for the home side.

Not long afterwards, Nottingham won a penalty in an almost identical position at the opposite end of the pitch. They chose the tap, moved the ball right and left then Jai Johal put a deft grubber into in-goal that his twin brother Aman Johal raced onto to touch down. Jai added the extras.

Aman described his try as “A bit of twin magic. Me and my brother have been practicing that for ages so it was nice to see us put it out on the main stage, I was pretty happy with that!”

Leicester started to gain the upper hand and hit back on the quarter hour mark with a pushover try, Archie Vanes was the man at the bottom of the pile of bodies. Threlfall couldn’t improve it however.

They continued their upward trajectory and midway through the half created a flowing attacking move that released Jake Metcalfe wide on the right. As he was stopped just short of the line he did well to offload inside to Charlie Davies to put the visitors into the lead, with Threlfall converting.

The score stayed that way for the best part of 15 minutes before, in what would become an increasingly common feature as the game wore on, Nottingham won a scrum penalty. From the ensuing lineout it was the Archers’ turn to get the driving maul going and hooker Harris got the score that Jai Johal converted to put the home side back in front.

Craig Hammond’s men spent the final couple of minutes of the half pinned to their own try line but managed to hold up the Leicester attack in the last act of the first period, meaning the score at the break remained Nottingham 14-12 Leicester Tigers.

Nottingham gifted the lead back to Leicester within minutes of the restart when they had a free kick from a scrum on their own 10 metre line but a wayward pass allowed James Cleland to run onto the loose ball, kick forward and gather to dot down.

The pendulum immediately swung back the Archers’ way as they opted for a scrum from a penalty within 10 metres of the Tigers try line. The ball was quickly worked out to Ryan Olowofela on the left to run in unopposed.

Aman Johal recognised the platform the forwards were providing the Archers: “The scrum was a massive asset in the second half, giving us go forward, and we really built off that. We managed to build phases, keep hold of the ball and tire out what was a good, resilient defence.”

After another dominant scrum by the home side on 53 minutes Jamie Annand, on at fly half for Jai Johal, put in an inch perfect crossfield kick pass that Luke Rokomoce ran onto at full pelt and dived over to score on his first appearance in the green and white.

Just over ten minutes later, Leicester coach Neil Fowkes was imploring his side to play their way out of a knock-on advantage deep in their own territory, such was the supremacy of the Nottingham pack by this point, but referee Andrew Jackson had no option but to award the scrum. The Archers duly got the forward momentum and the ball popped out on the Nottingham side for Harry Graham, in an unfamiliar scrum half role as a replacement for Will Yarnell, to dart over. Annand converted.

David Williams then put the icing on the cake, and Annand made it a perfect three from three off the tee to make the final score Nottingham 40-17 Leicester Tigers.