By David Haigh

Relegation-threatened Rochford showed too much fight for Canterbury, winning their National League 2 East clash 28-26.

Despite starting positively and leading at the break, the city side were too casual and inaccurate to put away some decent first-half chances - and those failures came back to bite them.

Harvey Furneaux's seventh-minute try, converted by Frank Reynolds, made Rochford look vulnerable but they soon put that idea to rest when fly-half Tauren Henwood stepped neatly through midfield with a quick reply.

However it was Canterbury who held the attacking edge. The forwards did the work again for a Billy Young try, which left Reynolds an easy kick, but that was all they could find.

On the stroke of half-time Cris Dudman's penalty goal sliced the Canterbury lead to six points and they were soon under pressure from a fired up home side after the restart. It earned Rochford territory and penalties and two from Dudman brought the scores level.

Going into the last quarter a disjointed Canterbury, who did not look after the ball, fell behind to a converted try by Rory Gray but then found some momentum of their own, earning a close-quarters try for Dave Irvine, topped up by Reynolds. However missed tackles handed centre Sam Cappaert the hosts a third touchdown with eight minutes left.

Dudman's successful kick left the city side needing a converted score to salvage a draw and they gave the ball width to send Ben Cooper over for a bonus-point try. Reynolds was faced with a difficult conversion, which he narrowly missed, and Rochford's second-half battling performance was rewarded.

Tenth-placed Canterbury welcome high-flying Barnes on Saturday.

Canterbury:Waddington, Hilton (Kingsman), Sterling, Hollidge, Morgan, Reynolds, Cooper (Williams), Young (Macmillan), Morris (O'Donoghue) Herriott (Lusher), Irvine, Stephens, Furneaux, Murray, Oliver.