The kind of dominance Leicester Tigers exerted at the scrum against London Irish on Saturday took its toll on both sets of forwards.
Tigers held the whip hand from the start of the game and the Irish pack buckled to such an extent that they conceded two penalty tries, while prop John Yapp was also yellow-carded.
But if it was gruelling work for the visitors, Tigers' forwards also had to dig deep.
"The first penalty try was fine," said Leicester lock Graham Kitchener after Tigers' 20-11 Aviva Premiership win at Welford Road.
"The second one dragged on for a long time. It was pretty draining but we got the reward in the end, so it was worth it.
"We stuck at it and didn't cough up position."
The game is not one that will live long in the memory of many of the participants or the bulk of the 23,284 crowd.
"It was very scrappy," said Kitchener, who was sin-binned late in the piece after being penalised at a ruck close to halfway.
"We were defending a lot of the first half and couldn't get our patterns going.
"In the second half, there were a lot of mistakes from both sides, but at the end of the day we came away with a win."
Kitchener added that Tigers had to be alert to the running threat of the Irish, which has been boosted of late by the arrival of full-back James O'Connor, who certainly had his moments on Saturday and is bound to cause headaches for whoever Irish face this season.
"They have got a very talented back-line, particularly the back-three," said Kitchener.
"We had to be aware of that. Perhaps we gave them a bit too much respect and space in the first half.
"We spoke about that at half-time and they weren't as much of a threat in the second half."
That is the type of approach Tigers have to adopt on Friday night when they travel to Kingsholm to face Gloucester in the Premiership.
They may have banked four points and returned to winning ways on the league front against the Irish at the weekend, but there is still plenty to work on in the Tigers camp and there will be no resting on laurels.
"We will analyse where we went wrong and put those things right," said Kitchener.
"If we play the way we want to play at Gloucester, there is no reason why we can't come away with a win."
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