Home is clearly where the heart is for Canterbury who put their miserable away form behind them to claim a decisive and deserved bonus point victory, their fourth of the season at Merton Lane.

It was an important result against fellow strugglers Southend which lifts the city club a notch up the league table and a little further from the drop zone.

They can thank a confident and sharp approach from a back division with a new centre pairing and a pack which, while facing problems at scrum time, never allowed that to blunt their effectiveness in other areas.

Southend, whose backs showed few collective ideas in attack and were occasionally tackle shy, also paid for lack of discipline and sin binnings in both halves cost them points they could ill afford to give away.

Canterbury had early encouragement with a fifth minute try from wing Aiden Moss. Fly half Ollie Best, always looking for ways to unlock the visiting defence, set it up with a mid-field break and precise handling created the overlap.

There was an instant response from Southend, with Brad Burr knocking over a penalty goal to atone for an earlier miss, but it was not long before the city side were back on the try trail.

Confidence to open up play from half way saw wing Aiden Moss given space on the outside and his kick over the last defender left Best time and acres of room score before he landed his second conversion.

It was a promising return from the first fifteen minutes of the match but it wasn’t until much later in the half that another score came. Southend made sure of that by controlling most of the set piece possession, including clever reading and good disruptive work at the lineouts, but without the ability to put it to maximum use.

Canterbury, always a greater threat with the ball in hand, eventually built pressure and visiting prop Aston Bevans-Royston was yellow carded. His offence left Best with simple penalty shot and although the Number Ten missed a second easy opportunity just before half time a 17-3 lead while playing up the slope was a potential match winner.

Those calculatiions were revised in the 56th minute when Southend hit back with a clever try. Grabbing possesion in mid-field they worked the ball to the right where an accurate, probing kick allowed full back Mark Billings to collect and score, with Burr converting from wide out.

However, if the visitors scented a revival they were to be disappointed. In the final quarter they barely troubled a solid city defence, frequently found themselves on the wrong end of the referees whistle and were locked in their own territory for much of the time. Canterbury struck twice to settle the outcome.

A Rosvall run had the visitors scrambling, but when the ball was eventually spun wide a speculative pass left centre Alex Veale isolated and with few options. A cut inside and a bustling run past three defenders changed all that and his try behind the posts gave Best an easy kick.

Locked in defence and harried by a series of powerful rolling mauls Southend hung on until, late in the day, scrum half Rees Powell was sin binned and the city club did not miss out. A maul, a ruck and there was scrum half Grant Kay nipping through a narrow blindside gap to give his side the prized bonus point.

 

Canterbury M.Beaumont, A.Moss, C.Horey, A.Veale (repl T.Best), M.Rosvall, O.Best (repl G.Hilton), G.Kay, R.McLeod (repl S.Kenny), S.Rogers (repl N.Wakefield), A.Wake-Smith, R.Cadman, C.Hinkins (repl R.Corr), T.Sherson, R.Ward, G.Micans