Three shots, two goals - Guernsey ride their luck

Jersey 1, Guernsey 2

TWO saves, a two-minute lapse of concentration, plus poor finishing from the home side meant that Guernsey defended the under-21 Muratti at Springfield.

Mix in with that a dollop of bad luck and Jersey, who should have been three goals in front at half-time, can count themselves fated to lose a game that, for fully 45 minutes, they dominated.

Delayed for over an hour because of fog in Guernsey, the game began at 3.15pm and, within the first five minutes the visitors' goalkeeper, Richard Davey, had dropped the ball twice, once under pressure, once from a long, hopeful shot by Paul Aitken.

Jersey were bossing it and continued to do so throughout the first half.

On so many occasions they looked like scoring and should have done so in the 37th minute when the lively Steve Wilkinson, five yards out in front of an open goal with Davey nowhere, pulled his shot wide when it looked easier to score.

It was one chance among several that Jersey conspired to miss, but take nothing away from Davey who, in the 40th minute, launched himself across the goal to push a fierce Craig Leitch shot around the post.

Four minutes later Davey threw his body in the way of a Mark Lucas cannonball shot from eight yards out - a great save.

With a minute to go before half-time, Guernsey had their first shot of the match, a Brent Marquand effort easily saved by Jersey 'keeper Casey Hickling.

In the second half they were to have another three attempts on goal; one being deflected over the bar, the other two finding the net.

It was that kind of game, as both managers admitted afterwards.

'The air was blue in the changing room at half-time,' said Guernsey manager Steve Ogier. 'Their poor finishing, our 'keeper and the two centre-backs kept us in this game.

'I told them that the only good thing they'd done was to come in 0-0 after 45 minutes. Jersey had played so well if we'd been 3-0 down, I couldn't have complained.

When Luc Le Miere tucked the ball away following good work from Craig Leitch on the left, to make it 1-0 to Jersey in the 58th minute, Matthews must have thought that this would be the first goal of many.

Instead, within six minutes his side were 2-1 down.

From the restart, from a free-kick on the left, Jersey's Hickling came when he should have stayed, allowing captain Dominic Heaume to head a soft equaliser.

Unsettled and looking a very different side to the one of the previous hour, Jersey then allowed Guernsey to run at them and, following a shot from Joby Bourgaize which Hickling parried, man-of-the-match David Rihoy calmly brought the ball under control from a poor headed clearance and belted it wide of the keeper and into the net.

From only three chances in a little over an hour, Guernsey were ahead.

They might not have deserved it, but the longer the game went on the more Jersey lost shape and simply belted the ball upfield, hoping that their luck might turn.

It was, indeed, a 'gutted' Matthews, who watched Heaume collect the Ambassadeur Bowl from Elizabeth Collings at the end.

Matthews said: 'You're always most vulnerable the moment after you score and we paid not once, but twice, for two lapses in concentration.'

'Even then, I still thought we could have won. Football can be a cruel game and I feel gutted for myself and my players. But that's a Muratti for you. All we can do now is make amends by winning the senior inter-insular.'