Nottingham made a good account of themselves against tough opposition in the form of Premiership side Harlequins on a sunny Saturday afternoon at The Bay, though they fell short of getting any bonus points.

Harlequins very quickly built up a strong lead, scoring 26 unanswered points inside the first twenty minutes, the first coming from the big lock Harry Brown within a minute from kickoff.

The second try came when Thomas Lawday caught the Nottingham defence off guard with a quickly tapped penalty, opening up space for the captain Archie White to finish under the posts.

It was then the full back Cameron Anderson who finished the next two tries, first linking up with Bynmore Bradley on the left side and then shrugging off a Harry Graham tackle to dive over the line.

It wasn’t as if Nottingham weren’t creating chances though. They had come close to scoring a try of their own a couple of times, most notably when Ellis Mee seemingly put Graham away on the left wing, though Quins did well to cut out and tackle the speedy winger.

They did eventually get on the scoreboard with ten minutes left in the first half. After a prolonged attack on the try line, Xavier Valentine eventually burst through the defensive line for the try.

Not long after that, Nottingham were once again on the attack, and Dafydd-Rhys Tiueti finished on the right hand side to cut even further into the visitors lead

Harlequins did manage to get one more try on the board just before the break though. A number of quick offloads eventually opened up space for Lewis Gjaltema to dive over the line.

Craig Hammond’s men came out of the break all guns blazing. In the very first passage of play in the second half, Michael Stronge took a quick offload and used his pace to run the thirty metres to the try line.

However, the visitors quickly got that try back, as hooker George Head bundled his way over the line after an efficiently executed attack.

Much of the rest of the second half passed without much incident, aside from Harlequins’ Thomas Lawday knocking on a pass that would have put him through to score after Sean Kerr Sold a devilish dummy to get through the Green and White defensive line.

Jack Musk squeezed over the line with just over ten minutes to go after a driving maul to add to the visitors lead.

With that being the final match Nottingham will play in the Premiership Cup, they finally return to league action, kicking off the Championship campaign in two weeks time with a trip to Caldy.