JONNY May reinforced his reputation as a Test-quality finisher with a rapierlike thrust 14 minutes from time that clinched this Leicester victory over an errorprone Exeter side that was well shy of the champion quality they showed in beating Wasps six days ago in Devon.
It's not often that the Chiefs are out-hustled, and out-muscled, but they were unable to build pressure and make it count against a Leicester side that showed greater urgency and played the better wet weather rugby to secure their third league win in succession.
The build-up to May's try was a clear illustration of the gap, with George Ford's hoist being spilled by Phil Dollman. When the Chiefs held a pow-wow thinking a scrum would be called they found themselves on the end of a scalping as the referee played advantage. Ben Youngs reacted fastest, taking off on a diagonal run before finding May with a long pass to the touchline.
With Exeter scrambling back May still had plenty to do, but the speed of his strike from the edge of the 22 was lethal as he squeezed between Ollie Woodburn and Will Chudley before using the wet surface to slide over the line.
Ford's touch-line conversion made it 20-10 to the hosts, and although Exeter coughed up more ball in this match than they usually do in an entire season, they managed to get just enough possession and territory in the closing stages to secure a losing bonus point.
Although Gareth Steenson missed with a penalty attempt in the penultimate minute, a Leicester scrum collapse gave him another opportunity in front of the posts which he nailed with only seconds remaining.
However, Tigers fans had plenty to cheer because Leicester made their own luck by capitalising whenever the Chiefs slipped up. Their first misdemeanour, a no-arms flying ruck clear-out by Julian Salvi on Telusa Veainu midway through the first-half, earned the former Tigers flanker a yellow-card.
It also led to Leicester scoring the opening try by outflanking the depleted visitors. It started with a 5 metre scrum pick-up by Sione Kalamafoni, followed by drives for the line by Dan Cole and Greg Bate- man, before Matt Toomua's long pass put Nick Malouf over.
With Ford converting this overhauled an early Steenson penalty to give the Tigers a 7-3 lead, and they added to it when the fly-half clipped over a dropgoal just before the break to give Leicester a 10-3 lead going into the second-half.
Exeter regrouped after the interval, and Leicester were lucky Malouf was not sin-binned for a trip on Woodburn. However, they made a breakthrough when a brief passage of concerted pressure from a Don Armand line-out catch saw Henry Slade's flick pass to Woodman give Dollman a clear chance to put Lachie Turner over.
He was thwarted when Veainu slapped the pass off course with one hand – but the punishment was swift with the referee correctly awarding a penalty try and despatching Veainu to the sin-bin.
With the score at 13-10 the match was in the balance – until May tipped the scales decisively in Leicester's favour.
