A stunning second half fight back rescued Canterbury’s pride and a losing bonus point against the league’s second placed side.
Trailing by 40 points at half time they were a revitalised team after the break as they hit Barnes with five tries. The city side were barely off the bus before they found themselves trailing to the first of six tries. Barnes started their onslaught after only three minutes when second row Ryan Nixon crashed over from close range.
Handling errors in midfield then allowed the hosts to quickly counter-attack with a try from scrum-half Iago Davies under the posts. A regulation catch and drive try, finished by hooker Ethan Sikorski, was followed by further first half touchdowns for full back Elliot Haydon and another for Sikorski.
With Haydon landing five conversions Canterbury’s prospects of taking anything from the game seemed bleak. However, whatever was said by Head Coach Corker at half time awoke his side with hooker Eoin O’Donoghue crashing over five minutes into the second period.
A rare visit into the Canterbury half saw Barnes’ Haydon scoring his second try of the game but the rest of the action belonged totally to the city side.
Ollie Frostick powered over from short range, whilst replacement scrum-half Presley Farrance found a gap on the short side from the base of a five metre scrum.
Canterbury’s second half dominance continued with flying Dutchman Jesse de Vries taking an offload from skipper Jamie Stephens before beating the home side’s defence with a mazy run from forty yards out. Aaron Cooper completed the comeback, diving across the line from a close-range ruck.
The league’s leading points scorer, Frank Reynolds, added conversions to all the second half tries but Canterbury were left to rue errors and a slow start. The consolation was that four try losing bonus point and they retain their fourth spot in the National 2 East table.
Canterbury: W.Waddington, G.Jones, F.Morgan, T.Best, H.Furneaux, F.Reynolds, T.Williams, D.Huntley, E.O’Donoghue, O.Frostick, C.McGovern, J.Stephens, C.Thomas, S.Rogers, T.Oliver.
Replacements A.Cooper, P.Farrance, A.Moss, J.De Vries, H.Kenny.
Pictures supplied by Phillipa Hilton.