TAUNTON Titans hit the ground running in National League 2 (South) with a 29-24 win at Cambridge yesterday.

There were several new faces in the squad with three players making their first league appearances for the club - Lewis Webb, Toby East and Oli Massy-Birch.

Freddie Gabbitass and Alex Wilcockson were also making an appearance in the Titans shirt for the first time in quite a while after missing all of last season Cambridge that had exerted the early pressure on the visitors after claiming the ball from the kick off.

Taunton defended well and weathered the early storm and slowly made their way down the pitch. From the Titans' first attacking line-out they launched their first driving maul and marched towards the line with the distinctive Ben Turner latching on to the ball at the back and diving over the line to claim their first try of the league campaign. The conversion was narrowly missed.

For the rest of the half Taunton were guilty of giving the ball away too cheaply and Cambridge capitalised whenever they could. After 23 minutes the pressure told and Taunton gave away a penalty that was converted by the Cambridge full-back James Stokes who didn't miss a kick all game.

This closed the gap to 3 - 5 but in the next ten minutes the Titans conceded two converted tries as once again Cambridge capitalised on sloppy play.

The Cambridge back row were running riot with some big carries and making plenty of yards but once Taunton started to keep the ball they started moving down the field.

With a scrum on the right the ball was hit up the middle by centre Wilcockson who had a great game all around. The forwards carried around the corner and Cambridge conceded a penalty.

A quick tap by Lewis Webb and the attack continued. Another penalty and another quick tap and after Wilcockson carried close to the line Webb dived over to claim the try on the stroke of half time.

With Kingdom adding the conversion the half time score was 17-12 to the home side.

After the change around Taunton started the brighter with several players stepping up the intensity. Captain Dan Lee led the way with a man-of- the-match performance.

Freddie Gabbitass scored a long-range penalty after five minutes closing the score to 17-15.

The Titans defence then started to get on top and improved as the game went on.

Taunton finally took the lead in the 62nd minute when Kingdom converted his own try after some great phase play with the backs and forwards combining well.

Shortly afterwards Jack Claydon capitalised on some more great defence and pounced on a loose ball on his wing in his own 22 and raced clear to score a well-taken try, again converted by Kingdom. This took the score to 17-29 with five minutes to play.

Cambridge threw everything at Titans and scored a converted try in the 81st minute, closing the gap to five points, and after a hastily taken conversion they still had one minute left to try to steal the game.

They moved menacingly down the pitch but the Titans resolute defence held firm.