Guernsey dig deep to brush off Farnborough

Guernsey 20, Farnborough 5

IF CHAMPIONS are those who triumph in the face of adversity, then Guernsey showed their Hampshire One title-winning credentials on Saturday. Hit with the loss of several key men before the day of the match, including Stuart Lloyd-Jones, Graham Hards, Dave McGall and Steve Hale, coach Rob Box was then robbed of both Mike Smith and Matt Litten to illness, necessitating another late reshuffle.

Add to that the departure of Steve Burt after only 16 minutes with an injury to his right knee and Guernsey were really down to the bare bones.

Then there was the 'rust' factor of not having played for four weeks and a frustratingly pernickety referee to contend with, so it was no wonder that Box was pleased to take maximum points with a four-try performance.

'We are happy with the result, but we are not happy with the fact that we were not allowed to play rugby - he was a weak referee,' said the coach.

'What was good was that we held it together, kept our heads and once again the Guernsey heart came through.'

All the Guernsey points came in the first half when they had the help of the wind.

Skipper Carl Johnson broke the deadlock after just six minutes with a superb individual effort.

Farnborough fly half Sean Franklin spilled the ball with the visitors just 10 metres from the Sarnians' line. Johnson was first to react, hacking it downfield and although the covering defender made the initial attempt to gather, the ball broke for Johnson to pick up and go over.

Divan van den Heever, playing at fly half in place of Lloyd-Jones, missed the conversion on a poor day for the kickers - every one of the eight kicks at goal failed.

Burt doubled the advantage on 10min. when he gathered a delightful chip by van den Heever over the defence before scampering around fullback Sam Baker for the try and prop Steve Haywood made it 15-0 with a push-over try after Johnson had taken a quick tap penalty five metres out.

The home side had to withstand some good Farnborough pressure halfway through the opening period but the defence stood firm and strong running from Andy Bailey and James Regnard relieved the pressure.

Right on the interval, Guernsey extended the lead further.

Makeshift scrum half Carl Gardner delivered one of his very few poor passes to van den Heever but the South African did brilliantly to side-step into a gap 20 metres out and then beat the last line of defence to score.

The visitors had the better of the second half as they had the elements in their favour but the Sarnians never looked in any serious trouble defensively - the tackling was solid and the work-rate high.

The one time they were breached was from a 58th minute line-out, with Neil Hudson being pushed over for Farnborough's solitary try.

Things were made harder for the blues with 11 minutes remaining as centre Paul Baker was sin-binned for a high tackle on the impressive Paul Livesey.

With the visitors down to 14 men, Guernsey came close to adding a fifth try through hooker Paul Thomas following a neat short line-out routine but the referee adjudged that the number two had been held up over the line.

'Carl Gardner gave him good service when he was allowed to and I also thought Jock Quesnel did well in his first half back after injury.

Farnborough captain Alex Stewart thought Guernsey deserved the win overall but was disappointed that his team did not get more points in the second half.

'In the first half, I did not think we were up for the game and Guernsey made a few breaks and capitalised on them,' he said.

'In the second half, I think we had the beating of them. But on the day we were beaten by the better team and we are a bit disappointed after travelling all this way.'