Canterbury’s losing run has now risen to five matches and on this awful form they will not be winning any time soon.

To say the city side had a bad day at the office is an understatement. Add to it the factory floor, the planning department and the maintenance bays and you get a better picture of what went on. The only area to escape criticism is the canteen, the pre-match lunch being far better than the rest.

They were toothless and increasingly timid against a Redingensians side which, after a sterile first half, took charge of the forward exchanges, controlled possession and cruised to victory.

Canterbury’s failure to exploit prime attacking positions was again their downfall. Even when Rams lost flanker Tom Vooght to a first half yellow card they could not make it count.  That was partly down to gritty and effective defence by the visitors, which saw centre Will Farris held up over the line, but mostly it was a failure of the city team’s basic skills.

They reached the break just three points behind, Jake Atkins 38th penalty goal giving Rams a slender lead, and with a strong, cold wind at their backs Canterbury should have made something of the second half.

That assumed a massive improvement in their core activities and it never materialised as Redingensians put trust in their pack and were not wrong.  The Canterbury scrum came under increasing pressure, the lineout disintegrated and when they did have possession it was frittered away by dropped balls, careless passes and a growing penalty count.

When they did make the occasional break, usually through scrum half Dan Smart, it died through neglect.

A high tackle and the inevitable penalty gave the Rams their chance and a catch and drive from the lineout swept forward before lock Ollie Taylor made the touchdown.  The conversion was missed but even at that point, with the final quarter to come, Canterbury were looking a bedraggled outfit.

They soon came under more close quarter pressure where  the Rams laid down a series of controlled and powerful scrums. Predictably, it won them a penalty try which Atkins converted.

Canterbury continued to battle but it was mostly against their imperfect selves and as the errors, collectively and individually, continued they left the stage with barely a whimper.

Canterbury: J.Jones, K.Braithwaite, J.J.Murray (repl F.Morgan), W.Farris, K.Thompson, T.Best, D.Smart, J.Green (repl A.Cooper), S.Kenny (repl J.Green), R.Cadman, T.Burns, (repl L.Woodbridge), M.Cantwell, H.McCormick-Houston, G.Micans (repl C.Townley)

Picture supplied by Phillipa Hilton.