Bury St Edmunds head coach, Ollie Smith, had mixed emotions at the end of last Saturday’s dramatic 29-21 victory over Canterbury.

The Wolfpack came storming back from a 21-5 deficit at half-time to score four unanswered tries, and so leapfrog their Kent hosts into fifth spot in the National League Two South table.

It was a rip-roaring last 40 minutes of rugby from Bury, who have now won six of their nine fixtures since Smith took over the reins this summer.

But the former British Lions, England and Leicester centre was unhappy with his side’s first-half showing, and the fact that he has to keep “spelling out” his instructions, time-and-time again.

“It was the classic game of two halves,” explained Smith.

“We started pretty brightly, and scored a rather fortuitous early try in that they let the ball bounce for us to run through to score (try by Will Scholes).

“But we then switched off. Canterbury put us under pressure, and I thought their full-back was fantastic.

“We were 21-5 down at half-time, although we knew that we were not out of the game. Even so, we were making it very tough for ourselves.

“We had certainly not got into our stride during that first half. From an attacking point of view, we had kept making poor decisions, and taking the wrong options.

“We had not played the way we had wanted to play, or the way we had said we would play. The opposition were not forcing us into turn-overs.

“Instead, we were making unenforced errors, which can kill any team.

“We had a good chat at half-time, and came out and scored 24 unanswered points, but we should not have been in that position at half-time, even though it was very pleasing the way we came back into the game.

“We kept hold of the ball, and looked a completely different team

“The most frustrating thing is that I have to keep spelling it out to the players. I shouldn’t have to keep spelling it out more than once, before it registers,” added Smith.

Bury’s second-half tries came from Conan Osbourne, Dwyane Corcoran, Chris Lord and Brendan Mitchell.

They entertain Clifton at The Haberden this Saturday (3pm).