Under-16s off to fine start

Guernsey 17, Basingstoke 10

TRIES by Wayne Bishop, Dan Harvey and Tom Beard clinched Guernsey a memorable and historic first win in the Hampshire Under-16s League. After years of being starved of regular competitive play, Brian Evans' under-16 side become the first local junior team to feature in a county league set-up and the very fact that they will be playing more regularly will bring on the players said the coach.

Evans had not been confident ahead of the game.

'To be honest, I didn't think we would win.

'We had only four games all of last season and lost all of them. But the boys seemed to have matured and have come on leaps and bounds,' he added.

This year Guernsey will play four home league matches and four away, plus their inter-insular clash with Jersey and a series of friendlies.

Evans said the win over Basingstoke was very much a team effort.

'There was some good defensive work. The pack played well and there was some very strong tackling by Scott Brouard.

'It was pretty even-stevens really. In the second half the game went backwards and forwards and it could have gone either way,' said the coach.

Guernsey had gone ahead midway through the first half, Bishop making a little inside jink break from 22m out and going over between the posts.

Nick Merrien converted for a 7-0 lead, which was reduced following a penalty awarded for offside.

Just before half-time, the visitors went ahead, making the most of a quick penalty to score and convert it for a 10-7 interval lead.

In the second period, Bishop kicked long downfield and Harvey's pressure on the fullback saw the visiting number 15 fumble.

Harvey nipped in to rob him and duly scored. Bishop missed the conversion.

But late on Guernsey made the points safe when another long Bishop kick set up a third try.

The unfortunate Basingstoke fullback knocked on and although the visitors won the scrum against the head, the decision to pass back to the full-back proved their undoing.

His attempted clearance was charged down by Beard and the latter did the rest.

*GUERNSEY'S participation in the league has been made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Royal Bank of Scotland International.

Their next game is at Eastleigh on 27 November.