Canterbury produced a battling performance to push unbeaten London Scottish all the way before losing 43-28 in National League 3 South at Merton Lane on Saturday.

The city club claimed a valuable and well-deserved bonus point in the process. They became the first club this season to score four tries against the big-spending Exiles, after trailing 19-0 early on - conceding three tries in the opening 16 minutes.

Winger Michael Melford, Canterbury's leading scorer, went over twice in the space of seven minutes before the Exiles added their fourth try.

Canterbury had flanker Christoff Blom sin-binned five minutes into the second half, and Scottish went further ahead, scoring three more tries.

However, home pair Ed Roche and Mark Livesey both went over in the final six minutes, to reduce the deficit, Gert De-Kock converting both to add to his two earlier successes.