Reynolds started his planning in December

In the aftermath of Saturday’s thrilling 38-23 promotion play-off win over Bournemouth at Footes Lane, the Guernsey Rugby Club director of rugby revealed that he begun the process of preparing the club for the step up to the fourth tier of English rugby ‘in December’, despite ensuring his players remained in the present throughout that time.

‘I had already made an agreement with the club, if we got there this is what it’s going to take and they agreed it, it’s all there,’ he said while the celebrations took place around him on the Footes Lane pitch.

‘[The players] can’t think about it, but I can. That’s my job and if I hadn’t done that, I shouldn’t have the job.

‘Who I’d like to give credit to is the committee – they were right behind us to get promoted and they want to put the resources in to do it.

‘Credit goes to Charlie [McHugh, the GRUFC chairman] and all those guys for getting behind us because at the end of the day I can come in with a plan but they are the ones who have got to make it logistically possible.’

While it is par for the course that there is likely to be some changes in personnel over the summer, Reynolds also paid tribute to the local players who form the core of his first-team squad and have taken Guernsey up four rungs of the RFU league ladder over the last decade.

Tom Ceillam, Layton Batiste, Nick Merrien, Jason Batiste, Luke Jones and Robin Le Cocq were all integral members of the squad against Bournemouth and continue to adapt to the level at which they are playing.

‘The biggest thing is there are a lot of guys here from when I first started – the local boys as well as Crainey [Cameron Craine] while Lewis [Hillier] came only a couple of years later – so we have been part of the group for a long time and that success we’ve had is shared throughout the group,’ Reynolds said.

• More in Tuesday's Guernsey Press.