Leicester might have now had the wind but they were on the back foot immediately, Richard Barrington’s turnover penalty putting Saracens on the attack and leading to a delightful inside pass from Goode to put Koch in the clear for the bonus-point try.

Now Leicester needed something in response and their maul delivered, repeat infringements by Saracens costing them with Nic Dolly finishing things off.

Then came the Leicester surges which Saracens continued to thwart, as was the case after one pinballing run from Matt Scott, with Billy Vunipola among a group of players who popped up with turnover penalties.

Aled Davies’ yellow card after almost a head-on-head tackle on Ford – not red, according to referee Craig Maxwell-Keys, because Ford stepped into the tackle – then left Saracens down a man. Ford, surprisingly, did not depart for a head injury assessment.

Leicester still had time, entering the final 10 minutes down by nine points, with Nemani Nadolo’s good carry and offload freeing Scott off on another run. This time Saracens infringed, sending Leicester to the corner and eventually over the line through new England international Chessum. Ford’s subsequent conversion left the game on a knife edge with Saracens ahead 29-27.

Saracens, to their credit, didn’t keep things conservative. A box kick from Davies was won back well in the air by Maitland, sparking an attack which ended with Saracens putting a penalty in the corner. Almost the entire side piled into the following maul, finished by Woolstencroft to take his recent hot form to seven tries in five games.

More importantly with so little time left it killed off Leicester’s hopes, consigning the Premiership leaders to just the third league loss of the season and giving the chasing pack some hope.

Match details

Scoring sequence: 0-5 Snyman try, 0-7 Ford con, 5-7 Woolstencroft try, 7-7 Lozowski con, 7-10 Ford pen, 12-10 Lewington try, 14-10 Lozowski con, 17-10 Lozowski pen, 17-13 Ford pen, 22-13 Maitland try, 27-13 Koch try, 29-13 Lozowski con, 29-18 Dolly try, 29-20 Ford con, 29-25 Chessum try, 29-27 Ford con, 34-27 Woolstencroft try

Saracens: E Daly; S Maitland, A Lozowski, N Tompkins (D Taylor 68), A Lewington; A Goode, A Davies; M Vunipola (c, rep R Barrington 3), T Woolstencroft, V Koch, C Hunter-Hill (T McFarland 53), T Swinson, A Christie, J Wray (B Earl 50), B Vunipola

Not used: E Lewis, S Wainwright, R de Haas, R Segun

Yellow card: Davies 61

Leicester: F Burns; H Potter, M Moroni (G Porter 51), M Scott, K Murimurivalu (N Nadolo 51), G Ford (c), J van Poortvliet (R Wigglesworth 58); J Whitcombe (F van Wyk 58), N Dolly (C Clare 51), J Heyes (N Leatigaga 64), E Snyman (J Wiese 51), C Green (O Robinson 70), O Chessum, T Reffell, G Martin

Yellow card: Murimurivalu 30

Referee: C Maxwell-Keys

Attendance: 10,500