National League Two South

Southend Saxons 19 Taunton Titans 34

TAUNTON Titans made it five out of five wins with a great team effort away to Southend Saxons.

The Titans went about it the hard way coming from behind at half-time for the first time this season.

With Southend being a notoriously hard place to go, it lived up to its reputation when after only four minutes the home side scored a converted try when they exploited an uncharacteristic whole in the Titans defence.

Full-back Gary Kingdom closed the gap with two penalties to make the score 7-6 after 25 minutes.

Another lapse in concentration from the Titans and Southend scored a carbon copy of the first try and took a deserved 12-6 lead.

Just after the 30 minute mark a quick tap penalty taken by scrum half Oli Claxton, which he nearly fumbled, but as he was diving forward with the fumbled ball he slipped it to winger Nick Mason who caught the Southend defence napping and showed great pace to race away down the wing to score.

This meant that the Titans got themselves back into the game just before the break but were probably lucky that they got within one point of their hosts.

The Titans came out all guns blazing and from a penalty won by flanker Dan Frost, the resulting lineout was won and after several phases of backs and forwards running hard into the opposition, fly-half Toby East ghosted over under the post.

Kingdom kicked the conversion and also added a third penalty as the Titans scrum pushed the home side off their own ball before East kicked a rare drop goal to give the Titans a 12-point lead.

Southend now started to run everything and were rewarded with another converted try to bring the scores to 19-24.

The Titans then started to turn the screw up front and disrupted several of the Southend's lineout as well as claiming several penalties in the scrum.

The resulting pressure helped scrum-half Lewis Webb go over for one of his two metre specials.

With 10 minutes still left in the game, the Titans went for the elusive fourth try.

With a couple of lineouts and a couple of scrums on the Southend line and several penalties - which resulted in a yellow card for one of the Southend front row - the Titans opted for another scrum and with a penalty already awarded, the ball was passed out to East who sent out a cross field kick to winger Jack Claydon, who scored out wide ato send the Titans on their long journey home with a smile on their faces.