Canterbury have enjoyed some much-improved recent form and coach Matt Corker is keen to ensure the good times keep on rolling.

The city club clung on for a hard-fought 33-30 National 2 East victory over Sevenoaks last Saturday.

They were hit with two yellow cards and a sending-off, but a massive defensive effort and astute changes from the bench saw them edge over the line.

It was a fourth league success from six fixtures in 2023.

But Corker says their recent 50-21 defeat at Dorking serves as a reminder of what can happen if they aren’t up for every game.

Ahead of Saturday’s trip to Rochford Hundred, he said: “The boys have every right to be confident.

“We’re very fortunate to have some very able players and good lads as well.

• Report: Canterbury 33-30 Sevenoaks

“We want to give the boys a great experience that they can look back on, once they’re hobbling around when they’re a little bit older.

“But Dorking was a great lesson. If we’re not physically there, we will get found out.

“We had a tough patch before Christmas.

"But now, we’ve turned the tide and we don’t want it to go back to the way it was.”

Rochford lie third-bottom, only two points ahead of second-bottom North Walsham, while Canterbury are 10th.

The city club won 31-12 when the sides met at Merton Lane in late October.

But Corker expects his troops to come up against a wounded animal, with Rochford hammered 71-0 at home by Barnes last weekend.

“They are a very proud club,” he said. “They will be wounded from last week.

“They had quite a bad loss to Barnes.

"If results go our way, we can go up a place. That gives us an opportunity to look upwards more.

“It’s an opportunity to separate ourselves from the lower part of the table.

"But nobody is going to give up their position easily.”

Canterbury were 12 points down after only eight minutes against Sevenoaks but had won a four-try bonus point by half-time.

Their tries, from Ben Cooper, Lewis Hollidge, Cameron Murray, Jamie Stephens and Eoin O’Donoghue, were backed up by four Frank Reynolds conversions, which took him past the 100-point mark for the season.

“The new league has given us so many local derbies,” Corker reflected. “I thought the tension was fantastic.

“We had a really bad start and, 10 minutes in, we were 12-0 down. But the thing I was very impressed with was the lads just fixed the problem.

“We scored really fast, I think it took Sevenoaks a bit by surprise.

"The thing we have started to understand is we can build pressure by being accurate and fast.”

But Corker’s side did make life tough for themselves, as they lost Danny Herriott and Stephens to the sin-bin and Tom Best to a red card.

The coach said: “We put in all that hard work and then fall foul of the referee.

“Part of our work this week is we need to realise that we don’t need to be desperate - we need to be more controlled.

“But some of the boys coming off the bench really helped out on Saturday.

“It was a real 20-man performance and that’s what it takes in this league.”