Graham's men show real bouncebackability

Guernsey 1sts 2, Jersey 1sts 1

WIDELY held predictions suggested that the men's first XI inter-insular was going to be a close affair. A final result of 2-1 in Guernsey's favour seems to suggest they were right.

But scorelines sometimes have a habit of not telling the story of the match.

In reality, Guernsey outplayed a Jersey team that was two dimensional and unimaginative in its attacks and were deserved winners come the final whistle at Foote's Lane.

'If there was possession chart of the game as you see on football programmes, we would have had 70% of the play,' said Guernsey coach Andy Graham.

'We showed great bouncebackability to go on to win this after going one-nil down. Conceding that goal didn't faze us and we should have scored more.

'But I'll take a 2-1 win.'

Jersey's goal came within five minutes of the start of the match when they were awarded a penalty corner that Mark Dicker converted with a delightful drag flick.

The ball flew just inside the left post of Guernsey keeper Adrian Gidney's goal, wrong-footing him after he had anticipated the ball going to his right.

In response, Guernsey stayed composed and seven minutes later equalised thanks to TJ Ozanne.

The forward received the ball from his forward partner Adam Kitching after he had done some good work holding the ball up to draw Jersey keeper O' Brien out.

Ozanne passed the ball wide of the exposed O'Brien who could only dive in vain.

A minute later, Ozanne came close to having his name on the scoresheet again when Guernsey won a penalty corner.

Ozanne unleashed a drag flick that O'Brien saved with his leg pads and the ball deflected just wide of the far post.

On 25 minutes, Jersey were awarded a penalty corner and there was an expectant hush in the crowd for another Dicker drag flick. He duly provided one but it was well saved by Gidney just above him.

The game went into a prolonged quiet period with Guernsey controlling the play and just not being able to score.

Jersey persisted with long aerial passes that were always dealt comfortably by Guernsey's defence.

Half-time came and went and yet the pattern remained the same. Guernsey just couldn't convert their good approach play into the deserved winner.

With 10 minutes to go the Guernsey goal drought was nearly ended when a well-worked routine at a penalty corner found Ozanne hitting the post.

But just one minute later Guernsey did get the winning goal via a Nic Chambers shot from just inside the D which O'Brien could do nothing about.

By way of celebrating Chambers ran past the Jersey supporters with his finger to his lips.

Chambers threatened to score again a few minutes later when he found himself in the same position for his goal. This time he scuffed the shot and the ball went wide.

It didn't matter though as shortly after this the whistle was blown for full time and Guernsey walked off the pitch worthy winners.

Jersey player/manager Tony Ray agreed with his Guernsey counterpart's assessment of the match.

'Getting an early goal was actually the worst thing for us to do,' said Ray.

'After this we thought it was going to be easy, we relaxed and then they dominated for the rest of the game.'