An outclassed and underpowered Canterbury slumped to their biggest defeat of the season at the hands of the league leaders. 

The gulf between top and bottom was huge as a Richmond side that was playing Championship rugby last season showed why they may be heading straight back to the higher level.

They were never seriously inconvenienced as their accuracy and physical superiority brought them eight tries.

A city side wearing a patched up look as they juggle with a lengthy injury list was ill equipped to deal with the onslaught but even at full strength would probably have struggled against quality of this kind.

It was clear from the outset that Richmond were in a different class as they powered through tackles, ran defence splitting lines and punished errors in clinical fashion.  

The opening try carried a warning as Canterbury overthrew a lineout, Richmond pocketed the ball and moments later Tom Hodgson had turned one of the city side’s few attacking possibilities into a lead for his side.

By half time the advantage had stretched to 29 points with further tries from Louis Lynagh, son of Australian legend Michael, a second for Hodgson and a catch and drive score by former Canterbury player Jesse Liston.

Rob Kirby, a threatening full back converted twice to leave the city side with a damage limitation exercise.  If they lacked the individual and collective quality of Richmond you could never accuse them of a lack of courage. 

They often resisted bravely when their line was under threat but bravery was never going to be enough.  When they did break free on a couple of occasion in the second half the visitors defence coped easily while another malfunctioning lineout robbed the city side of the outside chance of a score.  

Richmond, playing rugby that was a pleasure to watch, cantered away with tries from Byron Hodge, Cameron Mitchell, Toby Dabell and Liston. Kirby (2) and Lewis Dennett landed conversions to send Canterbury’s losing run since being promoted into double figures.

Canterbury: W.Waddington (repl M.Craven), R.Mackintosh, D.Corcoran, J.J.Murray, A.Meads. D.Smart (repl .K.Braithwaite), A.Cooper (repl J. Dever), G.Syminton (repl J.Otto),  C.Connolly. R.Cadman, M.Corker, W.Scholes, T.King (repl F.Edwards), T.Oliver.

Pictures supplied by Phillipa Hilton.