'Now our season has really started' - Bailey

A HIGHLY satisfactory 40-point victory and there is plenty more to come. That was the message from Guernsey captain Andy Bailey following this comprehensive win over Andover in the Sarnians' home opener of their London Three South-West campaign.

It was a seven-try performance with the visitors' consolation score coming from the last play of the match.

'That is our season started really,' Bailey said.

'If we had played like that in the first two games, we would have won those as well.

'Our problem is that because of our situation over here, we have only one proper preseason game and it takes a little while to get our structures together.'

It took them a time to get going in this encounter, too, but once the points started coming, they gave glimpses of the excellent rugby that they can produce.

And in Dylan Chatterton, they have unearthed another Kiwi gem.

Playing alongside the typically impressive Jim Elliott in the centres, the New Zealander showed outstanding pace and awareness on his Foote's Lane debut to live up to the reputation given to him by Bailey as being 'a quality player'.

It was Chatterton's fellow countryman Nick Barton who got the first points on the board with an eighth-minute penalty and he doubled the lead seven minutes later from slightly further out.

The opening try finally arrived on 26min. and it came from a usual source.

With the Guernsey backs collecting a cross-field clearance by Andover and setting up a ruck on the all-blacks' 22, Jim Regnard set off on a marauding run back towards the left-hand corner.

Having exchanged passes with back-row colleague Barton, the big number eight powered to the line and put his side 11-0 to the good.

Up to that point the visitors had defended resolutely but they were soon conceding once more, this time when Jordan Reynalds coolly picked up a miscued pass from Rob Brazier on the bounce before side-stepping his marker and cantering to the posts for Barton to add a simple conversion.

It was fitting Reynalds should get on the score sheet because he went on to have arguably his best game at Foote's Lane, reproducing the sort of form he showed in the Siam Cup win.

Just before the break, pack leader Peter Miers extended the lead further as Brazier heeded his calls for the ball to be spread to the right to take advantage of a huge overlap. Another Barton conversion gave the hosts a 25-0 interval lead.

Almost immediately after the turnaround, Andover were reduced to 14 men for 10 minutes after a punch was thrown.

Guernsey eventually made their one-man advantage pay right at the end of the sin-bin period as the captain took a long pass from Chatterton one-handed and raced to the corner following a huge rolling maul that took the Sarnians a good 40 yards downfield.

The forwards repeated the dose just three minutes later to put Andover on the back foot once again and Elliott exploited a gap with a good turn of pace to get the first of his two tries.

The second came shortly afterwards and was made by Chatterton's quick tap and Regnard's bulldozing run to within a couple of metres of the line, Elliott being on hand to gather in, just, the number eight's pop-up.

Barton's successful kick made it 42-0 and the final five-pointer came six minutes from time.

It was the product of some marvellous handling along the backline as each player in turn shifted the ball at pace from left to right and gave Barry Goude a free run to the line from halfway. There was to be no catching him.

The one blemish on the score for the green-and-whites, who had Simon Sharrott and Miers both spend time in the bin, came deep into stoppage time as Andover number eight Marc Wilding had a relatively simple finish to the left of the posts after the hard yards had been made down the right. He added the conversion himself - the final kick of the game.

'We showed we can play some really fluid rugby and there were another four or five try chances out there if we had made the right decisions,' Bailey said.

'Our defence was also good for 79 minutes and perhaps the most pleasing thing was that there was not really one single person who stood out - it was a team effort throughout.

'A league season is about momentum so we want to carry this on next week away to Old Wimbledonians.'