Guernsey switch off and suffer the consequences

Guernsey 20, London Irish Amateur 30

A DISASTROUS last quarter-of-an-hour saw Guernsey lose an eight-point lead and slip to a demoralising 20-30 defeat at Foote's Lane on Saturday. Coach Colin McLatchie cut a bemused figure after London Irish Amateur's emphatic comeback.

'It is deja vu,' he said.

'We were back to playing 60 minutes again. For 60 minutes we were cruising and then...' McLatchie tailed off.

Guernsey had started in magnificent fashion.

From the kick-off, they pressurised down their right flank thanks in part to a typical marauding run by Matt Morgan, who was a late inclusion in the side, immediately putting the visitors onto the back foot.

Having dragged in defender after defender, the ball was spun out to the left where Paul Livesey made the most of the overlap to dive in at the corner with only a minute of play having expired.

The Sarnians spent the next few minutes camped in their opponents' half and increased their lead before the clock had reached 10 minutes.

A London Irish dropout was collected by Barry Goode and he set up the move with a strong run into centre field. Willoughby Bloem then jinked his way through two or three tackles after taking the ball from the resultant maul before being hauled down 10 metres from the line but he managed to pop it up to the supporting Lawrence Hill-Tout and he applied the coup de grace.

Alec Bailey added the conversion and it looked as if a rout could be on the cards.

But the visitors, whose average age was in the early 20s, refused to panic and gradually got a foothold in the match as they managed to contain Bloem with double-team tactics.

By the half-hour mark, they had halved the deficit thanks to two penalties from Karl Becker and, with the game having grown fairly scrappy, that was the score as the teams turned around.

The Irish scrum half missed his third attempt at the posts 10 minutes into the second half but when Guernsey were caught offside three minutes later, Richard Parker closed the gap to three.

However, inspired by a piece of Bloem magic, Guernsey took control once more with 24 minutes remaining.

Alec Bailey did well to stand up in the tackle and retain the ball when under pressure. Bloem then burst through the first line of defence and with men in support, the ball reached captain Andy Bailey who galloped to the right-hand corner to make it 17-9.

When London Irish got over for their first try with 14 minutes remaining, though, the alarm bells started to ring.

It was a well worked set piece from another strong scrum inside the hosts' 22 with the ball coming out to fly half Parker who threw a subtle dummy before offloading to winger Stephen Sexton on the crash ball and he raced through to the posts. The Becker conversion cut Guernsey's advantage to a single point.

The home side's response was immediate, with Alec Bailey slotting over a penalty, but Irish regained the momentum quickly and blew Guernsey away in the final six minutes.

They took the lead for the first time when Becker peeled off from a catch and drive to score his first try. He also added the simple two points and he completed his brace with a similar try just as the game moved into injury time.

The margin of victory could have been even greater had winger Cris Parker not knocked on with the line at his mercy at the culmination of the final passage of play, but by that time Guernsey were already beaten.

'I am disappointed. The game was there for the taking,' McLatchie said.

'I was delighted with the first half and the first 10 minutes of the second but this was another time we just switched off. It was not just one or two, but the whole team.

'Their coach said that they knew Willoughby's reputation so they double-teamed him. They played to their strengths to negate ours.

'It is difficult with it being the first game back and we have had a lot of disruption for obvious reasons. We have got the league leaders next week and I hope that in itself will lift the boys.'