Nottingham had won seven consecutive Championship matches before their defeat at Plymouth a fortnight ago – and they followed that with another loss against Devonian opponents.

Bristol were able to leapfrog Nottingham and move into second place in the table when the East Midlands side were beaten 42-11 at home by leaders Exeter last weekend.

Nottingham are heavily dependent on dual-registered players from Leicester – which may go some way to explaining the severity of their most recent defeat.

Ten players who have featured for Nottingham this season were involved in the English champions' matches last weekend.

Lock Calum Green, back-rower Dan Hemingway and centre Andrew Forsyth all started against South Africa with centre Greig Tonks, prop Dan Cole and back-rower Craig Hammond all on the bench.

Then, on Sunday, Hammond, Tonks, Cole, lock Sam Raven and centre Joe Cobden all started the LV= Cup game at Leeds with Hemingway, Forsyth and scrum-half Sam Harrison on the bench.

In addition, influential scrum-half Tim Usasz has been called into the United States squad for his country's World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay and will miss tomorrow's game.

The dual-registration with Leicester has ensured an ever-changing line-up for Nottingham this season, with the club having used 37 players already.

Despite this chopping and changing, wing Tim Streather, fly-half Tim Taylor, Usasz and lock Nic Rouse have started all 10 league games so far, with prop Petrus du Plessis starting nine games and being used as a replacement in the other.

Tonks is Nottingham's leading points scorer so far this season, with 69, while Streather and full-back David Jackson have both scored four tries for the club.

After last weekend's defeat to Exeter, director of rugby Glenn Delaney promised an improved performance on the road at Bristol

He said: "It wasn't our greatest game, but there will now be an added edge when we play Bristol."