Guernsey's second win is so lucky

Guernsey 27, Effingham & L'head 25

GUERNSEY can complain about a lengthening injury list, but not about luck. They were very lucky to win against the league's hapless bottom side in a scrappy game at Foote's Lane which had most of its excitement in stoppage time.

With 80 minutes on the clock visiting winger Alan Ryan capitalised on dreadful defending and went over in the corner to put Effingham and Leatherhead level at 23-23 with the conversion to come.

That went over and Guernsey, who had controlled three-quarters of the match without ever looking truly convincing, seemed beaten by a side that had previously played six, lost six.

But, with seven minutes of injury time having been played, South African replacement Jacques Grobelaar was forced over by the home pack near the visitors' posts and Guernsey had sneaked the points.

Effingham were furious.

No. 8 Stephen Hunt was shown a straight red by UK referee Richard James for making a particularly offensive remark about the official's mental state.

Fly half Oliver Brown was lucky to stay on, too, and threw his scrum cap yards away in disgust as Effingham argued that Grobelaar had not touched down.

The ref was certain that he had: ''I was about a foot from the ball,' said the official.

Colin McLatchie, Guernsey's new coach, appeared a shade embarrassed to win and was unhappy with the showing.

'We almost threw that away.

'We struggled to play basic rugby at times. In the second half it was like schoolboys,' he added.

Bailey said the problems came in the last quarter.

'We played 60 minutes of good rugby and then went to sleep for a bit and they came back strongly.'

Backed by a crowd in the region of 500 strong, had led 15-3 at the break and 22-8 early in the second half.

Ben Le Huray had opened the scoring with a seventh minute score which Alec Bailey converted.

Before long Darren Jones had stretched the lead to 12-0 and nobody minded much that Bailey missed the conversion.

Brown put a young Effingham unit on the electronic scoreboard with a long-distance penalty that landed on the crossbar and flopped over for three points, but that was soon cancelled out by Alec Bailey's penalty from inside the 22.

It was never easy on the eye, though, and got uglier after the break after fullback Will Wyatt had completed a superb score and made it easy for Bailey by avoiding tacklers to run from the corner and score under the posts.

But with half-an-hour remaining the home side switched off and paid for it.

Evans went over to cut the deficit by five and after slotting home a 30-yard penalty to reduce it to 11, burst through non-existent tackling to score under the posts and then convert inside 10sec. flat: 22-18 and Guernsey very worried.

With two minutes left of the 80 Jim Elliott appeared to have saved the day with a fantastic last-ditch tackle to halt winger Nick Woosnam in full flight and seemingly destined for the line, but Guernsey did not adhere to the wake up call and inside two minutes Ryan punished them in the opposite corner.

McLatchie thought his side were beaten but after winning a penalty they kicked for touch and won their lineout 10m from the line.

Guernsey had been dropping ball all afternoon but this time clung onto it as if their lives depended on it. One not pretty move later, Grobelaar had done the business.