Canterbury extended the gap at the top of National 3 London and South East to 19 points after a 47-20 win at Gravesend.

The visitors ran in seven tries as they had too much class for their hosts, although Graves didn't read the script early on, taking a third-minute lead through Sam Hall's penalty and cancelling out Peter Kelly's catch and drive score when James Newman crashed over.

But from then on it was one-way traffic. A swift break by scrum-half Dave Marshall set up Kelly for his second touchdown after 16 minutes and in the second quarter a yellow card for Gravesend back row man Viliame Stevens brought an invitation the city side were never going to refuse.

From the penalty awarded against Stevens his team mates were caught sleeping by a clever lineout ploy. Wim Baars strolled over for the try and Martyn Beaumont's second conversion Canterbury put ahead by 19-8 at the break.

Three minutes into the second half centre Paul Brown added a converted try, but the home side showed some resistance when Nathan Lines crossed the line, with Hall converting, to reduce the deficit to 11 points once again.

Tom Best and Brown then took centre stage, adding a try each, although a yellow card for Ricky Mackintosh paved the way for renewed Gravesend pressure and former Canterbury front rower Jamie Forsyth burrowed over.

The closing minutes saw Juan Del Val intercept a pass to claim Canterbury's final try. Beaumont claimed his sixth conversion before Baars followed Mackintosh to the sin bin for a technical offence.