HEAD coach Tony Yapp says Taunton Titans must learn ‘the very harsh lesson’ from Saturday’s 20-15 defeat at Barnes, after watching his side squander a 12-point half-time lead to go down in South London.

Tries from Brett Harvey and a penalty try, together with a five points from the boot of Toby East, saw Titans take a 15-3 lead into the half time break – but unforced errors let Barnes back into the game and with 15 minutes remaining, the hosts took a lead they would not relinquish.

Yapp admits the defeat puts any thoughts of a promotion push on temporary hold, but backed his players to make amends when basement side Cornish All Blacks visit Hyde Park on Saturday.

He said: “We started really well playing to our system and getting lots of tempo into the game and sticking tight to our pre match game plan, which resulted in two early well worked scores.

“This is about as good as it got for us during a very frustrating afternoon - as the pitch conditions deteriorated we found it very difficult to hold onto the ball started to drift away from our game plan and as a team made too many basic errors.

“That said we still created opportunities to build a lead, but it wasn't to be.

“Credit to Barnes, they came out in the second half with lots of energy and forced us to play from deep as we found it difficult to exit through our kicking game, which resulted in too many errors - two of which ended in soft tries for Barnes, who deservedly took the lead with about 15 minutes to go.

“After the game there was a real feeling of disappointment and the players felt that the performance wasn't good, which I would totally agree with.

“So going forward any pressure there was from being near the top of the league has, for the moment anyway, evaporated as we move down into fourth spot.

“Going forward, as tough as it is to swallow, it's massively important that we learn the very harsh lesson from Saturday and make sure we work hard this week and put things right on Saturday.”

Cornish All Blacks have yet to register a win this season after some well publicised upheaval during the summer.

Taunton will have to do this without centre Matt Tichias, who was carried off last weekend with a hip injury.

The extent of the injury is still unknown but the Titans will be able to call on the experienced duo of Jon Gatford and Gary Kingdom, who both missed last weekend through unavailability and illness respectively.