National Two South

Taunton Titans 68 Canterbury 21

TAUNTON Titans got back to winning ways with an emphatic ten-try win over Canterbury in difficult conditions at Hyde Park, writes Keith Brooking.

Fly-half Joe Simmonds scored a quite brilliant hat-trick for the Titans and was joined on the scoresheet by Jack Claydon, Ollie Claxton, Freddie Fraser, Toby East, Barrie-John Chapman, Paul Davis and Gary Kingdom, while Kingdom kicked nine out of ten conversions.

The Titans played into the strong wind in the first half and within the opening10 minutes their forwards dominated proceedings, stealing two scrums and a lineout on the Canterbury put-in, but failed to capitalise, never really making it past two phases before dropping it or knocking on.

The first time Titans went past three phases they scored through wing Jack Claydon.

After a great run by Toby East, who was playing at centre, a great timed pass allowed Claydon to outpace the defence.

The conversion was missed by Gary Kingdom, however he made up for that miss converting the other nine with some difficult kicks into the wind to end with a personal haul of 23 points.

The Titans secured the try bonus point after 29 minutes through tries from scrum half Oli Claxton and both centres Freddie Fraser and Toby East - who were both recipients of some great phase play that stretched the Canterbury defence to create the space.

This brought the score to 26-0, however the visitors then sprung into life scoring two tries at the end of the half through captain Tom Burns and number eight George Micans, with both converted by Guy Hilton to make the half time score 26-14.

Those two tries must have hurt the Titans as they came out firing in both attack and defence.

As Canterbury, who were playing into the conditions struggled to get out of their own half for most of the second period due the Titans' discipline and defensive effort.

The hosts capitalised from a turnover when after one minute, fly-half Joe Simmonds scooped up a loose ball and went over for his first of three tries.

This was followed by tries for Barrie-John Chapman, which opened the flood gates, with Simmonds getting his second followed by Paul Davis, and Gary Kingdom, before Simmonds got his third and the Titans 10th try, running the ball in from the half way line after another turnover.

Canterbury had the last word with a converted try on the final whistle scored by winger Mason Rovall with Hilton converting.

Taunton Titans: 15 Kingdom, 14 Mason (Webb 58), 13 Fraser, 12 East, 11 Claydon, 10 Simmonds, 9 Claxton, 8 Prior (Davis 47), 7 Fleming (Capt), 6 Chapman (Gatford 63), 5 Hales (Persey 55), 4 Harvey, 3 Caulfield (Chase 47), 2 Spurdle, 1 Woolmore

Tries: Claydon 12, Claxton 16, Fraser 24, East 29, Simmonds 41, 56, 71, Chapman 50, Davis 60, Kingdom 69

Conversion: Kingdom 16, 24, 29, 41, 50, 56, 60, 69, 71

Referee: Alexis Manley