Bailey upbeat despite defeat

INEXPERIENCE told as Guernsey lost their opening London Three South-West fixture of the season on Saturday. Captain Andy Bailey took a lot of positives from the 13-5 defeat to Old Mid-Whitgiftian, but unfortunately the result was not one of them.

'It was disappointing because we should have won the game really,' he said.

Ben Le Huray's try had given the Sarnians a 5-0 half-time lead.

The score was made by Jim Elliott's break and his centre partner was on his shoulder to take a good offload and reach the line.

However, Guernsey could not make further pressure count.

'We had a couple of chances when we were in the ascendancy in the second part of the first half which we really should have taken. That could have made it a very different story,' Bailey said.

'Then, in the second half, a bit of inexperience in the forwards cost us.

'The line-out did not really function and while I thought our scrum was awesome, it seemed to count against us because we kept getting penalised.

'When the set piece starts going, you are going to be under a lot of pressure,' he added.

Old Mid-Whitgiftian had an outstanding no. 8 who Bailey felt was the difference between the two sides in the end.

'Without him they did not have a lot of options,' said Bailey.

The Guernsey captain praised the several debutants in the team.

'We would have preferred to have eased them into it a bit more with a few second team games and using them off the bench, but we were missing some experienced guys such as Dave McGall, Ben Mahy and Darren Jones,' he said.

'But the new guys looked promising and there was lots of good stuff to build on.

'It is just a case of getting the structure right now.'