Beaten boss backs greens to beat Dorking

Guernsey 55, Petersfield 7

GUERNSEY made it a magnificent seven wins on the bounce and having seen his team concede nine tries to the home side Petersfield coach Mark Kent is tipping the green-and-whites to win the league. 'If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on Guernsey,' said Kent, whose side have now been defeated by both the frontrunners in London Four South-West.

Guernsey and Dorking meet next Saturday and Kent predicts a cracker.

'It's going to be a good fixture and there will be some good rugby played,' said Kent, heaping praise on the Guernsey side.

'Guernsey are a class act. Through one to 15 you've got some good players.

'It is not nice to take 50 points but we went down to a very good side.'

Rob Box, the Guernsey manager, was not so happy.

'We played in fits and starts, but gave the ball away cheaply,' said Box, who singled out two-try winger Barry Goude for praise.

'I don't like singling out players, but Barry was outstanding on the wing.

'He's done everything I asked of him and more.'

Box embraced the mood of praising the opposition and particularly their pack.

'I don't know why Petersfield have not done so well. They've got a tidy pack. Steve Thomas said he had come up against the biggest prop he's played against this season.'

Goude was one of eight different scorers and the home side had the match under control as early as the eighth minute.

By then full-back Divan van der Heever had gone over between the posts and Goude scored the first of his brace, both scores unconverted by an initially out-of-sorts Werner Stroh.

Stroh, a bleached-blond on his last home appearance and now sporting a jet-black mane, also missed a relatively straightforward penalty and when Petersfield fly-half scored an excellent opportunist converted try on the 21min. mark, the South African must have been feeling a shade uneasy about his misses.

But he had the inspirational Welshman, Matt Morgan, to bale him out.

One fantastic, barnstorming run by the number eight underpinned Guernsey's third try.

Petersfield players were hanging off both sides of Morgan as he broke through tackle after tackle. Ben Mahy so nearly benefitted with a try under the posts, but Petersfield's attempted clearance kick found only Paul Livesey on the touchline and his dart inside set up a neat backs move which provided Goude with another score in the corner.

Stroh, faced with his most difficult kick to date, finally found his range and Guernsey were 17-7 to the good.

Before the break Mahy had forced his way over and Stroh converted again and Joubert Thomson also squeezed over for a 29-7 interval advantage.

For the second period and with one eye on Willoughby Bloem's imminent departure, Box opted to give Lee Whatman a run at scrum-half in place of the South African star.

The tries kept coming.

A cheeky short lineout saw the Thomas brothers swap short touchline passes and prop Steve go over in the corner.

Skipper Johnson then ran half the length of the pitch to score try number seven, well converted from wide by Stroh.

Andy Bailey wriggled his way over, too, for a converted late try and time was nearly up when Livesey's lively wing-play was rewarded with his own score, excellently converted from the touchline.