National Two South

Canterbury 25 Taunton Titans 21

TITANS slumped to their fifth defeat in six games at the hands of a determined Canterbury, who showed them how to hold on to a lead after going in front in the 70th minute and keeping the ball to see the game out, writes Keith Brooking.

On the flip side, the Titans had the lead at half time but struggled to get any type of hold on the game in the second half.

They got off to a poor start when Sam Skinner was sent to the sin bin after just six minutes and Canterbury capitalised straight away with a try.

However down to 14 men, Taunton dug deep and scored two tries of their own while Skinner was off.

First to go over was debutant Jonny Hole, who took his try well after a great pass from fly-half Joe Simmonds created the space.

Kingdom's conversion from wide out was successful to give the Titans a 7-5 lead.

The second came courtesy of Dan Frost, who had a great game throughout. After the Titans turned the ball over at the breakdown, Freddie Fraser made the initial break before offloading to Frost, who broke through the tackle to power over. The conversion was missed but the Titans created a seven-point gap with only 14 players.

The Titans were with the full complement for 10 minutes before second row Ben Turner was also sent for a 10 minute rest.

Canterbury once again wasted little time in capitalising with the extra numbers to close the gap to two points.

Two penalties from the boot of Kingdom extended the Titans lead, before Canterbury kicked a three-pointer of their own to close the gap.

On the stroke of half time, the visitors could have scored a third try, but Frost was denied his second when he lost the ball over the line.

The second half was all Canterbury and with the slope advantage, they camped in the Titans 22 for 20 minutes before the defence finally let them in for a score.

Taunton did have the chances to clear their lines and make their own way up the pitch, but took several wrong options and made too many mistakes.

With the score at 18-18, both teams had opportunities to claim the win and Titans kicked a penalty to take the lead, before the home side claimed the winning converted try.

Taunton went close to snatching victory at the end, but some great scrambling defence from a team desperate for the win kept the visitors out.

Titans: 15 Kingdom, 14 Fraser, 13 Mason, 12 Vakalutukali, 11 Hole, 10 Simmonds, 9 Webb, 8 Skinner, 7 Frost, 6 Fleming (Capt) (Harvey 69), 5 Turner (Prior 37 – Edwards 74), 4 Hales (Turner 47 – 67), 3 Caulfield, 2 Gatford, 1 Chase (Claydon 67)