Nottingham survived a late London Scottish comeback attempt to hold onto a 31-28 victory to break their three game losing streak.
An excellent first half for Nottingham saw them go into the break 24 points ahead, but three unanswered tries in the second half for the visitors brought the gap to just three points. In the end though, Nottingham did just enough to secure an important bonus point win.
The game didn’t start great for Craig Hammond’s men, as just five minutes in the referee had awarded Scottish a penalty try and sent Xavier Valentine to the sin bin for pulling down the maul.
All that did though was wake the home side up. Just minutes later they won a penalty and kicked to the corner, utilising a driving maul from the resulting lineout, Matt Arden then took the ball out the back and offloaded it to Jordan Olowofela who finished it in the corner.
Minutes after Valentine returned to the field following his sin bin, Ryan Olowofela burst through the defensive line and made a simple offload to Michael Stronge to beat the last man and take the lead.
The Archers finished the second half with a huge flourish, putting three more on the scoreboard in the ten minutes leading up to the break. The first of the triplet came when Iosefa Maloney Fiaola shrugged off a couple of tackles in the middle of the pitch. A couple of nice passes later, Ryan Olowofela found the space to finish in the corner.
Then, David Williams broke through the defensive line, and with just one man to beat he had a wealth of options as three or four Green and White shirts were with him. He chose to quickly offload it to Stronge who took it in for his second try of the half.
Finally, on the stroke of half time, Valentine made up for his mistake in the first five minutes and pushed over the line.
Scottish’s comeback attempt started almost immediately after the break though, as Johnny Law found a gap in Nottingham’s try line defence to score his side’s second lot of points of the game.
Ten minutes later they closed the gap even more. Alec Lloyd Seed kicked a penalty in a dangerous position to the corner and then perfectly executed a driving maul from the lineout, with Jack Musk being the man to push through and get the ball down.
The whole crowd from both sides were on the edge of their metaphorical seats for the final ten minutes, as Scottish just ten points down went through seemingly 100 phases just five metres out from the line, but Nottingham’s try line defence stayed unbelievably strong and they eventually forced the knock on.
However, that wasn’t the last of the drama, as with just a minute to go Scottish put the pressure on again and got their fourth try of the night, Bryn Bradley breaking through the defensive line untouched to bring his side to within just three points.
It was a little too little too late though for the visitors, as Nottingham were comfortably able to make one last defensive stand to escape with the win.