TAUNTON Titans head coach, Tony Yapp admitted it was ‘nice to get back to winning ways’ after seeing his side end a run of three straight defeats in style, running in 12 tries at home to lowly Cornish All Blacks on Saturday.

Defeats to Chinnor, Cambridge and Redruth have all but ended Titans hopes of a top-two finish in National Two South, but that has given Yapp the opportunity to take a closer look at some fringe players and the head coach was satisfied with the way they performed.

He said: “It's nice to get back to winning ways after a run of defeats that have all but put us out of the race for a top two finish.

“With a large number of players still unavailable last week’s training was a case of going back to basics tidying up our set piece and going into the game with a very simple game plan.

“Although Launceston struggled, we put in a very good performance; the set piece functioned really well and this gave the back line a great platform on which to attack, we kept the pace in the game as much as we could and it was great to see this work so well for us.

“Defensively we had our edge back, it was great to see the boys getting off the line quickly and making low tackles and not soaking as we had done the previous week.

“With players missing, Saturday was also a great opportunity to involve some fringe players and give them a chance to get some good game time in a Titans shirt.

“Tim Thompson got promoted to start after making his debut last week as substitute and both Stuart Heal and Dave Edwards impressed coming off the bench to also make their debuts.”

After a man of the match performance that saw him score five tries, Yapp held out special praise for centre Nick Mason, for who he says ‘the hard work is paying off’.

Yapp said: “Talking of working hard, I can't go without mentioning someone who was set the challenge of gaining more weight in the gym to make him stronger as a player.

“It just so happened that Nick Mason scored five tries on the weekend and was outstanding.

“Is it a coincidence that since Nick has been working hard in the gym he's been scoring tries for fun and is becoming very difficult to stop? I think not.”