Canterbury’s away-day woes in National 2 South continued as they went down 25-15 at Launceston on Saturday to slip back towards the foot of the table.

Despite looking the livelier team in the opening 40 minutes, the city club went into the break seven points behind as the hosts seized on errors and turned them into points.

Matters got worse after the break as Canterbury could not take advantage as yellow cards saw the Cornish All Blacks reduced to 13 players, with the hosts actually scoring themselves during that spell with a penalty.

From the off Canterbury were hampered by turnovers and penalties and fell behind to a Kieron Lewitt penalty.

The visitors continued to boss territory and eventually made it count after 25 minutes when Mason Rosvall was worked into space and Canterbury’s top-scorer brushed off two challengers to score, with Ollie Best converting for a 7-3 lead.

A handling mistake was however punished by the hosts’ sharp back division leading to a try for centre Ryan Westren, converted by Lewitt, though Best levelled the scores at 10-10 soon after with a penalty which went in off the post.

However Canterbury handed back the initiative as they dropped the restart, with Launceston’s forwards piling forward and paving the way for flanker Jamie Salter to cross, with Lewitt’s conversion making it 17-10 at the break.

The lead was extended six minutes into the second half with a fine try, though some slack blind-side defence allowed space for Billy Searle to break away from halfway before freeing Jake Murphy to score.

Two quickfire sin-binnings gave the city club a route back, and Sam Rogers touched down after a catch-and-drive try, however former city club man Lewitt added a penalty.

Canterbury battled on and kickable penalties, which might have secured a losing bonus point, were sacrificed in favour of pushing for a try which never came, despite Martyn Beaumont going close in the last minute.

Canterbury are just three points ahead of third-bottom Lydney, who have a game in hand.