Head coach Matt Corker is confident Canterbury Rugby Club can work through their injury issues.

Missing more than a dozen players combined across the city club’s first and second-team squads, the 1sts suffered a 31-7 National League 2 East loss at promotion-chasing Dorking last weekend while the second string - the Pilgrims - have lost four straight matches since promotion to Regional 2 South East.

But Corker was in no mood to look for excuses as Canterbury’s first team look to bounce back at home to Havant, who suffered a 38-24 weekend defeat at Westcombe Park, this Saturday.

Havant have won one fewer league game than Canterbury but sit above them in the table due to the amount of bonus points they have accumulated.

“The two teams above us, Havant and Westcombe Park, have won less games,” said Corker. “It’s definitely something we’re going to be talking about.

“We need to start producing more points in order to get where we want to be in the table.

“We’re missing quite a lot of players, we have actually got 16 injured! That’s putting pressure on both squads - the first team and the Pilgrims.

“But you’re always going to have times where you’re missing players in a season. It’s a good opportunity for other players.

“The stars of the future, they can show what they can do.”

It’s been a tricky start at the highest level they have ever played at for the Pilgrims after last term’s championship-winning campaign.

But Corker revealed: “It’s not predominantly the Pilgrims, getting injured. It’s predominantly first-team players.

“Harry Sloan hurt his rib at the weekend and a lot of them (the knocks players are picking up) aren’t particularly preventable.

“It’s important, when players do get back, they’re firing on all cylinders.

“Getting good players back is always a boost but, even with the squad we have got, we should be strong enough to do well against Havant.

“They have lost their last three games but they got some very good results before that.

“It’s an important home game to get us back on track.”

In a remarkable match of eight yellow cards at Dorking, Canterbury made a quick start as No.8 Tyler Oliver dotted down for an early try, which was converted by fly-half Frank Reynolds, as the hosts were reduced to 13 players.

But Dorking put in a strong defensive effort to halt the damage before they took control, with the away team also having players sin-binned.

Corker reflected: “We actually had the exact start we wanted.

“We put lots of pressure on - and they had three yellow cards in the first 20 minutes. But we let them off the hook a few times when we could have got three tries.

“A 21-0 scoreline is a very different scoreline to a 7-0 one. Then, they built a tiny bit of pressure and scored themselves to eat into our lead before half-time.

“There’s some positives there but some of our decision-making wasn’t up to the standard it needed to be against one of the top teams.”

Tighthead prop Olly Frostick was among the Canterbury players yellow-carded.

“We needed to take our chances,” said Corker.

“Games always ebb and flow, especially against the better teams. They’re always going to come back at you.

“It’s about how many points you have got in the bank and how you deal with the pressure.

“Referees have a difficult job to do. On the back of giving them three yellow cards, he set himself a benchmark so our yellow cards weren’t actually too harsh, to be fair.

“The main area where Dorking were able to get back into the game was the scrum. Our scrum has been strong for a long time.

“But we were second-best there and that put us under an enormous amount of pressure.

“That’s something we will be working hard on.”

Canterbury have signed two loan players to address a growing injury list in the back division.

Owen Hewett, from Tonbrdge Juddians, and Tom Barton, Blackheath, have been recruited by director of rugby Taff Gwilliam.