Canterbury suffered a comprehensive 36-5 defeat against Cambridge at Merton Lane on Saturday - their heaviest loss of the National 2 South campaign so far.

The city club conceded six tries and hardly threatened a Cambridge side who displayed too much pace and power for the hosts, for whom the performance and result were a new low-point this season.

The visitors made an explosive start which took them 12 points ahead inside 11 minutes, both tries coming in the wake of some weak tackling, the first came when No8 Steve Hipwell barged through with the second coming from back row Joe Collingham.

The hosts did pull back a try on 18 minutes, George Micans driving forward and feeding Martyn Beaumnont who broke from halfway before releasing Mason Rosvall to score out wide.

It however proved a false dawn as the city club’s other promising moments were ended by either penalties of handling errors.

It was 19-5 when Cambridge fly-half Gerhard Boshoff intercepted a telegraphed pass from Ollie Best and strolled through to touch down, before adding his second conversion.

After the break the penalties and errors from the home side continued to flow and three more Cambridge tries ended the game as a contest.

A scrum ball taken against the head set up Gray Hircock to cross, Ross Kevan pounced on some slack control at the back of another scrum and full back James Stokes completed the rout with a converted score following a Canterbury clearance kick.

Canterbury remain 12th, just two points outside the bottom three and now 11 points outside the top-half.