Raiders coach Reynolds: ‘Mistakes are just killing us’

Having recovered from an early 17-point deficit to go into half-time level at 17-17, Guernsey then shipped 34 unanswered points to the hosts, who jumped above Raiders in the National Two South table as a result of their 51-17 victory.

However, Jordan Reynolds revealed yesterday that he did not berate his players after this latest defeat, which made it five in a row.

‘After the game I did not yell at them. We have to stick together and we are constantly trying to improve,’ said the Raiders coach.

‘I don’t think it was through lack of trying – the effort was there, it’s just the mistakes that are killing us.

‘We try to limit our error count to about 10 a game, but we are going to be up in the 30s in this one.

‘It was just simple things, too, that repeatedly happened. We kept on making mistakes and it seemed every time we did, they got seven points from it.’

He added that Old Redcliffians must be given credit for the clinical nature in which they took their chances.

‘Obviously we’re disappointed and almost embarrassed to look back at the game as this is a squad that had the potential to perform a lot better,’ Reynolds said.

‘We did actually play well in parts and, funny as it may sound, I took a lot more positives out of it than I did the Canterbury game, but the scoreline tells a story and it comes down to us not defending properly as a collective.

‘As a comparison, in the Canterbury game we missed only four or five tackles for the whole game but we are going to be in the high 20s for this one.

‘We had trained well all week, we knew exactly what Old Reds were going to do, how they were going to play it, there was nothing there that we were not aware of going into the match, but they just played harder.’

• More in Tuesday's Guernsey Press.