The loan period is over

Guernsey 13, Jersey 38

JERSEY outgunned Guernsey with clinical efficiency to regain the Siam Cup on Saturday. There were murmurings around St Peter a year ago after Guernsey's first victory in a decade that the beautiful trophy was merely on loan.

Dai Burton's side turned that viewpoint into a reality at Foote's Lane with an emphatic first half display.

The way the hosts restricted their opponents to 12 points in the second deserves much praise but by then the game, and the Siam Cup, had gone.

The Sarnians did not let the non-show of their South African duo, Willoughby Bloem and Francois Venter, demoralise them and played with guts and determination but this time the class gap told.

In reality, Jersey have a side who should be pushing for promotion from London Two South next season whereas Guernsey have only just staved off relegation from the division below. And the additions of Nathan Kemp and Latu Maka'afi to the Caesareans' ranks made things even tougher.

The Tongan openside flanker showed himself to be a supreme athlete. At virtually every ruck he would be the man to appear with the ball and his strong runs set up Jersey time and again. He made man of the match an easy choice.

Kemp, a former junior All Black, was master of all he surveyed. In the tackle he was a brick wall, his passing was always accurate and he just made the Jersey side tick.

Guernsey had started positively in the opening moments, but as soon as Jersey had the first glimpse of space it needed a remarkable covering tackle from Carl Gardner to bring down Jim Milner and prevent the hosts from going behind after only two minutes.

In fact, the breakthrough took 10 minutes to arrive and it was all about power.

From their own lineout just outside the Guernsey 22, Jersey executed the perfect rolling maul, which pushed their opponents back, dragging in defender after defender until Latu broke away and powered through to score.

Sam Cummings added the conversion.

Guernsey struck back immediately when Jersey were penalised at the restart and Gardner stroked home a fine penalty from the right.

But the action was soon back at the other end of the pitch with Andy Bailey making a vital last ditch tackle on Steve O'Brien.

Jersey then turned down what would have been a straightforward three points and opted to kick for the corner from a penalty. It proved to be the correct choice as from the lineout, they immediately changed the point of attack to take several Guernsey players out of the equation and the maul rolled over the line with O'Brien getting the touchdown.

Four minutes later a flowing move combined with missed tackles saw Jersey extend their lead once more as Guernsey paid the price for not taking down centre Ross Allan and he off loaded to Milner for a simple try. Cummings conversion made it 19-3.

Typically for a Siam clash, the inevitable fisticuffs arrived on 26min. and both Paul Thomas and Kemp spent 10 minutes in the sin bin for their involvement, although others could easily have gone as well, while Steve Thomas went to the blood bin. There was more of that to come.

Latu should have increased the margin on the half-hour but dropped O'Brien's pass with the line at his mercy following Andy Whelan's excellent break.

Two minutes later, the ever impressive Gareth Jeffreys made no mistake as he came on the shortside from a 5m scrum.

Guernsey finished the half strongly with Matt Morgan delivering a couple of typical battering-ram runs that needed several defenders to repel, but they could not add to their tally and turned around 26-3 down.

It had been a half in which Guernsey had got through a lot of work, but hardly any with ball in hand and that took a lot out of them.

A rout looked on the cards when O'Brien scored his second in the first minute of the second half after Jeffreys had hit the line at tremendous pace to set up the opportunity for his captain.

Ten minutes later Latu completed his brace also as Jersey showed great composure in offloading in the tackle several times until the gap opened up for the flanker. Cummings' superb touchline conversion increased the gap to 35 points, but that was as big as it would get.

The second round of fighting soon arrived with Matt Banahan, who had just been introduced as a substitute, and Dave McGall this time shown a yellow card to reduce the game to 14-a-side once again.

During this period, Guernsey finally broke through the Jersey defence with a pushover try for Morgan, who with fellow back rowers Regnard and Darren Jones put in a fine display.

With both sides making several changes during the last quarter, the game lost some fluency, but it was Guernsey who came up with the final score.

Paul Livesey, playing his final game for the club before departing for his teaching post in Thailand, created it with a marvelous jinking run before Regnard took up the ball and, with the help of a fierce hand-off on Jeffreys, galloped to the line.

Unfortunately, the match ended with yet another brawl and it was the biggest of the game.

Most players were involved in one of the three or four scuffles.

The scene was pretty ugly and, although it eventually calmed down, it resulted in Banahan being sent off.

However, as in almost every rugby match, when the final whistle was blown a few seconds later, the players were friends once more.

It was, though, only the ones in red celebrating.