Scorer of the Archers’ third try, Harry Graham, was buoyant after the win: “It’s a really good feeling. We’ve been on the wrong side of a few close games and today we stuck to our process, we knew what was coming, we got really tight as a group and it came good in the end.”

The first half was a very close affair with only a point separating the sides come the interval. Nottingham went ahead after five minutes as Luke Rokomoce got on the end of a Gwyn Parks chip to slide over in the right-hand corner. Parks couldn’t add the extras, however.

On a pitch that didn’t lend itself to free-running rugby, given the pouring rain, the first real open play of the contest came on 25 minutes when a Warriors kick gave something for Jake Garside to chase. Graham was back to defend for Nottingham but was forced over his own try line by Garside for the five metre scrum. From the resulting set piece Will Reed was able to break free to dive over. He converted his own try to put the visitors into the lead.

With the clock in the red at the end of the half, Nottingham won a penalty 25 metres out. Parks opted to go for the posts and his kick was successful, putting his side in front 8-7 at the break.

Graham described the thoughts in the dressing room at half-time: “In that first half our defence was so strong, we kept them out which was really important. We said in the second half we were going to do the exact opposite – keep them in their half. Pin them back every time we get an opportunity and let them make the mistakes. The boys are so pleased that we were able to do that.”

And that was exactly how it played out, with the ball barely leaving Warriors territory for the duration of the second period. Parks tried to nudge Nottingham further ahead from the tee on 47 minutes but his penalty hit the post.

With the game in its final quarter the home fans were beginning to wonder if their team’s territorial dominance wouldn’t be reflected in the scoreline. But, aided by the visitors’ lock James Tyas being in the sin bin, James Cherry was able to pile over off the back of a scrum, which had been remarkably stable all evening, given the conditions underfoot. Parks made it a two score game.

And the icing was added to a very muddy cake when Graham ran it in from distance in the closing stages, which he described as: “You catch the ball, you look up, you just see brown shirts in front of you and you hope that there’s a few of those that are on your team so you’ve got a bit of a gap. It just opened up and if you can have a little bit of a step and pin your ears back on this you’re going to slide anyway so, if I needed to slide earlier, I could have done.”

Parks converted once again, the Nottingham defence saw out the final minute or so and the celebrations began.