May double sets up Leicester's 31-18 win over Bristol Bears

Leicester Tigers 31-18 Bristol Bears, Welford Road
Scorecard

Jonny May starred with a double as Leicester Tigers resisted a late fightback from Bristol Bears to complete a 31-18 victory in their Gallagher Premiership face-off at Welford Road on saturday.

This is Leicester's second win from eight games as they consolidated their 11th place while Bristol are at fifth place.

The hosts applied early pressure with Ben Youngs offloading to Ellis Genge and the prop, who recently signed a contract extension with the Tigers crossed over in the third minute and George Ford followed with the conversion to make it 7-0.

Bristol responded back immediately with a penalty kick from Callum Sheedy but they suffered a setback in the ninth minute when Jordan Lay was yellow-carded for a high tackle on Telusa Veainu.

Despite being down on numerical advantage, Sheedy kicked another three pointer to narrow the gap down to one point but troubles mounted for the visitors when Alapati Leiua was sin-binned in the 17th minute for a deliberate knock-on but this time Leicester punished them with back to back tries from May (19') and Ford (26') as the teams finished the first half with a 21-6 lead.

Pat Lam's side made a terrific start to the second half with Dan Thomas (45') and Piers O'Conor (46') dotting down in a span of three minutes that brought the gap down to six points but they could not find any more breakthrough in the game and instead May's second try in the 74th minute ensured the Tigers completed a 13-point victory to revive their Premiership campaign.