Work to do as Ampthill fade to defeat at Nottingham after good start

Looking to build on the previous week's 31-29 win against Chinnor, Ampthill started well before losing their way and Turner said: “Despite starting really well and scoring first we couldn’t maintain any real field position to trouble Nottingham and put them under any pressure.

“They defended really well. We spoke at half-time about our decision making and game control and we’ve come out for the second half and seem to have forgotten that.

“We’ve a lot to work on this week before we face Caldy at our place on Saturday.”

Early exchanges saw the Mob dominate both territory and possession and opened the scoring on two minutes.

Scrum-half Declan Murphy caught the hosts defence napping, picking up from the ruck and going himself from 30m out to score right of the posts, Evan Mitchell added the extras.

Nottingham took 15 minutes to reduce the arrears after squandering several scoring opportunities. The hosts set piece was working well and set the platform for the Nottingham backs to combine and put Williams over with the conversion missed.

The hosts began to dominate and scored their second try just before half time – another penalty and line out defended by the Mob but the defence were sucked in as Nottingham reversed the play and took advantage of an overlap to score.

A successful conversion gave them a 12-7 lead at half-time.

Nottingham extended their lead three minutes after the restart with multiple phases of forward play in the visitors' 22 before they burrowed over.

With just over a quarter of the game left Nottingham secured their bonus point.

Winning an Ampthill scrum on their 5m line, fly-half Arden put a grubber kick through and Nottingham dotted down under the posts.

Five minutes later Arden scored Nottingham's fifth as a quick tap and go penalty put him through a gap in the Mob defence to make it 31-7.

Almost from the restart the hosts scored their sixth and final try – their backs combining and Williams sprinting through the Ampthill defence to dive over through the posts.

Josh Barton grabbed a consolation try in the 71st minute, but by then the damage had been done.