Jonny May's hot streak continues as Leicester Tigers edge past London Irish

London Irish 27 Leicester Tigers 28: It is the first time since March 2015 the Tigers have won four on the bounce

Jonny May has now scored six tries in as many games (Getty)

Leicester’s England wing Jonny May continued his rampant scoring ratio of a try a match, but Tigers were prevented from posting a first bonus point of the season by a hard-working London Irish.

May had said in a morning newspaper interview he was waiting for “a nice try that my mum could finish off”, and it arrived with a simple second-half strike on the end of a pass by Matt Toomua to add to his previous scores against Bath (two), Northampton, Harlequins and Exeter, as Leicester won a fourth straight Premiership match for the first time since March 2015, and Irish lost for the fifth in a row.

The Exiles kept battling to the final whistle, and the team second-from-bottom in the table were rewarded with a bonus point as former Tigers wing Alex Lewington went over for a try in added time – but their habit of starting slowly afflicted them again.

Irish have been conceding an average of 10 points in the opening quarter, and the pattern continued as Leicester led 11-0 with 20 minutes played.

Jonny May celebrates after scoring Leicester's third try (Getty)

Toomua’s high-quality long pass, that English spectators are being accustomed to seeing from the Australian centre, gave Nick Malouf his third try of the season, after a jinking break by scrum-half Sam Harrison that featured May as a midfield decoy.

George Ford missed the conversion of Malouf’s try but the England fly-half soon added two penalty goals, the second of them for a high tackle on George McGuigan by Franco van der Merwe.

Ford was Leicester’s captain with Tom Youngs on the bench, while the hooker’s brother Ben joined full-back Telusa Veainu in withdrawing due to illness. Harrison and Leicester’s flanker Sione Kalamafoni were then forced off after a clanging clash of heads between the team-mates to add to both sides’ packed injury list.

A third penalty by Ford arrived in the 27th minute, after Irish’s Ben Franks, operating on his less favoured loosehead side, was pinged for collapsing a scrum.

A rare home attack and a yellow card to Leicester centre Gareth Owen for flipping Greig Tonks over gave some hope to Irish, who breezed to promotion from the second-division Championship last season but have found life tough on their return to the Premiership since an opening-day win over Harlequins at Twickenham.

Greg Bateman is tackled by Petrus Du Plessis (Getty)

Tommy Bell’s penalty punished Owen’s offence, and the 11-point margin at half-time might have been closer if Irish’s long-serving one-club men David Paice and Topsy Ojo had been able to finish good scoring chances close to the Tigers’ goalline.

But Irish needed to tighten up their basics, with their initial, long restarts to Kalamafoni poorly chased and allowing Leicester easy exits from their 22.

And there was another crucial error 100 seconds into the second half, as Leicester flanker Will Evans breezed through a hole near a ruck left by Franks and centre Aseli Tikoirotuma, for a try converted by Ford and a Tigers lead of 21-3.

The accurate Bell landed his second penalty with 46 minutes gone, and Irish’s New Zealand-born Scotland flanker Blair Cowan blasted through Malouf’s tackle for a try converted by Bell, after Ojo, Tonks and Petrus du Plessis carried play deep into Leicester territory.

Leicester resumed control with a try from a line-out in the 62nd minute, adding to Irish’s habit of conceding scores from a single phase.

Tigers confidently spread the ball wide after Valentino Mapapalangi’s catch, and a short drive and another long delivery from Toomua spun off his right hand gave May his sixth try since he joined from Gloucester in the summer – and., overall, the 27-year-old’s 47th in 97 Premiership appearances.

Nick Malouf touches down for Leicester's first try (Getty)

Ford converted for 28-13, then Irish’s fly-half James Marshall and replacement prop Oli Hoskins galloped through Leicester to make a try for Paice, converted by Bell.

Irish could point to the absence of their two defensive leaders Fergus Mulchrone and Mike Coman, and the go-forward of Ofisa Treviranus.

They moved a point further away from Worcester at the foot of the Premiership, and will now attempt to regroup in the Challenge Cup, facing Edinburgh and Stade Français over the next two weeks, while Leicester enter the European Champions Cup with French opposition in Racing 92 and Castres.

Ford said: “We’ll be massively disappointed we didn’t get four tries, it’s something we definitely need to get better at. There were a few bits and bobs we weren’t good enough that let us down to get that final try.”

May said: “We let one or two last passes slip, and they kept them in the game. There’s still loads to work on but Europe is a fresh opportunity and we’ll get excited for it.”

And Ford said of the scoring rate of his erstwhile house-guest, May: “We haven’t heard the last of it. [But] if he’s finishing tries for us that’s great. We’re trying to put him in a bit of space, so he does what he does. He’s finishing brilliantly now, so fair play to him.”

Scorers

London Irish: tries: Cowan, Paice, Lewington; conversions: Bell 3; penalties: Bell 2.

Leicester Tigers: tries: Malouf, Evans, May; conversions: Ford 2; penalties: Ford 3.

Teams

London Irish: T Bell: A Lewington, A Tikoirotuma (rep T Fowlie 64 th min), G Tonks, T Ojo; J Marshall, B Meehan (S Steele 52); B Franks (H Elrington 67), D Paice (capt), P du Plessis (O Hoskins 59), F van der Merwe, S de Chaves (T Paulo 53), J McNally, B Cowan, J Schatz (L Lomidze 64).

Leicester Tigers: M Tait; N Malouf, G Owen, M Toomua (M Smith 64), J May; G Ford (capt), S Harrison (B White 33); G Bateman (E Genge 50), G McGuigan (T Youngs 73), D Cole (P Cilliers 50), D Tuohy (H Wells 63), D Barrow, S Kalamafoni (L Hamilton 31), W Evans, V Mapapalangi.

Referee: JP Doyle (RFU).