OR hammer depleted side

Old Reigatian 59, Guernsey 5

POOR Guernsey had everything go against them on Saturday. The Sarnians travelled to Old Reigatian knowing they were in for a hard game and they were not helped by the late withdrawal of Simon Sharrott and Darren Jones due to flu.

To compound matters, they lost both Ben Le Huray and Paul Livesey to injuries during the match and finished with several players out of position for much of the second half.

'Then we lost Ben and Paul early in the second half and we did not have guys in their normal positions after that. To be fair to OR, those guys played really well.'

Guernsey's solitary score came via a Jim Regnard try and the skipper was full of praise for his influential number eight.

'Jim was immense. He had a tremendous game and did not deserve to be on the losing side. He was simply outstanding.

'In all honesty, I cannot fault any of the guys' commitment. They never let their heads drop even though it was just one of those days when nothing went right for us.

'One of the biggest pluses we can take is that we had a lot of young second-team guys with us who have not experienced this standard before. It is a bonus for them to have exposure to this league and hopefully they will learn from it,' Bailey added.

The captain hopes to have Livesey available for Saturday's match with Old Wimbledonians although Le Huray and Jim Elliott are definitely out.

'We cannot dwell on this defeat. We have a home fixture coming up on Saturday and it is a huge game for us,' Bailey said.