On a glorious afternoon at Mattioli Woods Welford Road it was the first chance for recently appointed Leicester Tigers Head Coach Geoff Parling to see his new charges in action, and for Nottingham supremo Craig Hammond to get a look at some of his new recruits in a match situation.

It was Parling who would have been the happier initially as, with only 50 seconds on the clock, Leicester’s first possession resulted in new signing Gabriel Hamer-Webb breaking through the Nottingham line on the left and taking it over the whitewash from halfway.

Nottingham replied by piling on the pressure but despite a couple of lineouts deep in the Tigers’ 22 they couldn’t turn it into a realistic scoring opportunity, ultimately giving away a scrum 10 metres from the line. From the restart Will Wand found a gap to break towards halfway and lovely fast interplay released Ollie Hassell-Collins to double the Tigers’ advantage.

Just past the midway point in the first half Leicester stole a Nottingham lineout in the visitors 22, working the ball inside to Ale Loman to power over the line under the posts. Charlie Titcombe was able to convert for the first time.

Four minutes later there was a let off for Nottingham as the Tigers knocked on over the line following a series of pick and goes but the hosts had penalty advantage so they got the ball back and, in the following play, a slip by Luke Rokomoce allowed George Pearson to extend Leicester’s lead.

It was a challenging opening half an hour for the Archers but prop Aniseko Sio knew it would always be the case: “We knew it was going to be tough. We’ve had a good eight weeks of preparation but when you come up against a team like Leicester Tigers you know you’ve got to be on it at all times. We’ve got some boys still working through the defensive and attacking systems so credit to them for sticking to it out there.”

For the remainder of the half both sides traded scores. Firstly, the Archers were able to get on the board as a darting run on the left by Harry Graham freed up Kegan Christian-Goss to cross in the corner. But with Leicester making a habit of finding gaps in the Nottingham defensive line, lock Harry Palmer broke through to run it in for the hosts.

Michael Green then did well in the air for Nottingham wide on the right and released Rokomoce to slip in by the corner flag, with Gwyn Parks converting from the touch line. But the Tigers hit back when Pearson doubled his tally by intercepting a Christian-Goss pass and dashing the 20 metres to score under the posts, making the half-time score Leicester 36-12 Nottingham.

There were multiple substitutions by both teams at half-time which affected the fluency of the Archers more than the Tigers as the hosts made it 43 points on 43 minutes when replacement Jamie Blamire piled over and new fly half Orlando Bailey converted. And the half century was brought up soon afterwards as Bailey broke through to set up Joaquin Moro to cross the line.

Blamire then went on to record his hat-trick by burrowing over twice, either side of Aniseko Sio doing likewise for the visitors. And on the hour mark, in his last act before being replaced, Emeka Ilione found himself on the end of a flowing Leicester move to notch the hosts’ fifth try of the half.

After a period of relative calm Jay Ecclesfield set up good field position for Nottingham with just over 10 minutes remaining, when he chipped a loose ball forward and the Archers were able to move it through the hands to ultimately find Graham in space to run in between the sticks.

But the last try of the match came from the Tigers as Tom Threlfall dotted down under pressure to make the final score Leicester 76-26 Nottingham.

Sio was pleased with his try, but more so for the effort of the players: “It’s really good, when we’re running back and forth, trying to make some tackles, to get a few tries in there. It’s a boost for the team as we build towards playing London Scottish in a couple of weeks’ time.”