From zeros to heroes

St Jacques 22, Les Quennevais 19

THE scoreline did St Jacques an injustice. Guernsey's all-blacks were more convincing winners than the three-point margin against Les Quennevais suggested, the visitors scoring a converted try in the sixth minute of injury time to narrow the gap significantly with the final move of the game.

But the home side were not going to let that spoil their first win of the JRA League season at the KGV.

'It was an excellent win. All the boys and I were extremely happy with it and it is a very good morale booster,' said captain Stef Bampton.

'I was a bit disappointed that we let that try in at the end, but we knew we were safe by then and it was just important to get the win.'

When the two sides met in Jersey in November, Les Quennevais ran out 86-7 winners, but St Jacques did not let that result affect them going into the reverse fixture.

'Everybody turned up with the right attitude; they were wanting to win.

'A lot of the people who played in the last game were playing again this time but we had three key players who missed that game able to play this time in John Bell, Zac Ferbrache and Tom Robertshaw.

'But I do not want to take anything away from any of the players - some of them had their best game in a St Jacques shirt.

'They maybe thought they were going to be in for an easy ride after the last time,' Bampton said.

St Jacques started much the brighter of the two sides and camped themselves in their opponents' half for much of the opening quarter-of-an-hour.

But they could not turn their pressure into points and it was Les Quennevais who broke the deadlock against the run of play on 19min. when they worked the ball through several phases, waited patiently for an opening and flanker Bill Green scored in the right corner for a 5-0 lead.

Mike Quittenden came close to levelling soon afterwards following an interception, but the home side had to wait until the 39th minute to score.

St Jacques had a couple of scrums in quick succession on the Les Quennevais five-metre line and from the second Bell fed Steve de Jersey who broke a tackle before touching down. Bell added the conversion for the half-time lead.

Saints' second try three minutes after the interval came via a similar route.

From a scrum in front of the posts, player-coach de Jersey received the ball once more; this time he was tackled a couple of metres out but Simon Freeman was on hand to roll off a tackle and dive over the line. Bell added another conversion.

Just moments later, the flanker was at it again as St Jacques stole a line-out six metres from the Les Quennevais line following a superb 60-yard clearance from Ferbrache and the resulting rolling maul ended with Freeman scoring his second try.

St Jacques were seemingly in command at 19-5.

But Les Quennevais hit back with half-an-hour remaining, Darren O'Brien barging over and Gary Rousseau adding the two points.

Bell then missed a chance to add three points from a penalty but with eight minutes remaining, he atoned for that miss by slotting over from 30 yards.

Excellent defending kept the advantage at 10 points right up to the death when Mark Gillem scored that last-gasp converted try.

'We were nervous at times and we could have executed some things better but generally the lads did brilliantly,' said Bampton.

'The first try was totally against the run of play - it was a good try but we had had all the pressure - so I told the guys just to keep going as we were.

'Overall I was pleased with every aspect of our game. The tackling was particularly pleasing because that had let us down in the first game but we also rucked well, scrummaged well and the line out was good.'

The match was typical of this season's JRA League, with every team proving to be competitive.

'We lost against the Jersey seconds 14-10 and it was two tries all, but we did not convert ours and we missed a penalty. We gave them a bit of a fright,' Bampton said.

'Nobody seems to be running away with it. Everybody seems to be beating everybody else.'

St Jacques' next fixture is the all-Sarnian clash against Guernsey seconds before they meet Jersey seconds the following week.