Canterbury produced their best performance of the season to overturn a 26-0 half-time deficit at National 2 South title chasers Hartpury College and claim an impressive 31-29 win.

The hosts ran-in four first-half tries in Saturday's game, bossing the set scrums and taking advantage of a succession of penalties conceded by the city club, who saw two men sin-binned.

Canterbury began the second half with Jesse Liston and Wim Baars in the sin bin and without injured skipper Peter Kelly. However, they managed to gain a foothold in the game with two scores in the opening minutes of the half.

Hooker Neil Wakefield, on for Kelly, touched down after good work from Scott Brown and Aiden Moss and the city club continued to probe and centre David Devlin-Jones crossed for a second try moments later.

A penalty from the hosts only briefly interrupted Canterbury’s momentum and two tries in three minutes set up a grandstand finish, first Baars atoned for his earlier sin-binning with a try and then scrum-half Dave Marshall went over on 70 minutes to take the visitors within a point.

Desperate defence from the College side in the final three minutes saw them lose two men to the sin-bin and concede a penalty 30 metres out which was converted by Tom Best for a memorable victory.