Canterbury suffered a comprehensive 46-19 defeat at the hands of Dorking in National 2 South on Saturday, falling short of a losing bonus point despite three second-half tries.

The city club slipped to a seventh defeat in 10 league games and received a further blow as scrum-half Dan Smart was forced-off with a suspected broken arm.

Once again Canterbury were punished for ill-discipline as three players saw time in the sin-bin, and the ruthless hosts made them pay.

Full-back Martyn Beaumont received a yellow card for a deliberate knock-on after some missed tackles left him trying to prevent a try from a two-on-one break with 14 minutes of the first-half remaining.

Dorking punished the visitors with 18 points before the turnaround by way of two tries, one converted, and a penalty to add to an earlier kick from former city club man Matt Noble.

Noble also rounded-off a fine team move to add a third try five minutes after the break, with Ryan Jeffery breaking free and chipping ahead for the bonus point score to leave Canterbury 32 points adrift with 20 minutes remaining.

After the hosts were temporarily reduced to 14 themselves, George Micans and Richie Corr broke away, and though Corr was held up over the line, Alex Veale dummied and finished strongly soon after, with Guy Hilton converting.

Hilton reduced the arrears further with a clever run and score, and when Mason Rosvall barged down the left to score a third, converted by Hilton from the touchline, it looked as though the comeback was on.

However Alex Wake-Smith and Corr were sin-binned in the closing stages and Dorking rallied to beat a fragile city club defence twice more for converted tries.