A Wild Geese chase

The amateur branch of London Irish are currently bottom of National Two South – albeit with the same won two out of 11 record as Guernsey – which means, on paper at least, the home side have the ideal opportunity to hit back from their aberration last week when they conceded 34 points without reply in the second half at Old Redcliffians.

Raiders coach Jordan Reynolds revealed yesterday that some open and frank discussion had taken place this week following that 51-17 defeat, but added that it was measured and focused on the best way to move forward.

‘To be fair, it was good to hear a few different guys speak in the team meeting about areas we need to fix,’ he said.

‘Attack-wise, we have made some massive strides and now we just need to get some of the lateral movement out of the picture and that’s an easy fix.

‘Defensively, the attitude is the thing we can try and fix from last week. We did not work around the corner at all, the numbers were not good enough, the line speed was not there and we missed one-up tackles.

‘Yet, I have to say that against some of the top sides this season we have shown that our defence can be something to be reckoned with – against Canterbury we only missed five tackles all game – so I think last week was a bit of an off day for us.

‘We need to pick it up again, bring some good energy levels and make sure we perform as best we can in defence.’

Turn to Page 40

Reynolds has delayed naming his side to face Irish while he waits on fitness tests to three of his backline from last week, with question marks hanging over Jason Batiste, Luke Sayer and Anthony Armstrong.

However, the pack is likely to stay largely the same.

‘A lot of those injuries cropped up on Sunday – the players finished the game but the swelling comes up afterwards,’ said the coach.

‘It’s a bit of a shame, but hopefully we can get one of two of them on the field – that would be some success. Because it is a home game, we can give them more time before we have to make a decision.

‘It will not impact our game plan because anyone who comes in will have already had game time this season, doing what we are doing.’

Wild Geese have suffered two defeats this month after finishing October strongly with back-to-back wins over quality opposition in Redruth and Clifton.

In a league in which anyone seems to be able to beat anybody on their day, Guernsey could move a couple of place sin either direction this weekend so it is no wonder Reynolds described it as an important game.

‘As I’ve said before, there’s no such thing as average teams in this league – every team seems to be really good,’ he said.

‘I don’t think Irish are going to be far short of the last time we played them three or so years ago. They still seem to have the same strengths.

‘Their scrum looks really strong and, I have to be honest, our scrum has not been good for several weeks now and that’s something we have to focus on this week.

‘We are talking about playing one of the teams around us in the league at home, so this is a big game for us.

‘It is something I talk about a lot, but we have to be quicker off the line than them, we have to make tackles quicker than them – basically we have to work harder than Irish on the day and it does not take skill or talent to do that.

‘We just have to be up for an absolute battle.’

Guernsey Raiders v. London Irish Wild Geese kicks off at 2pm tomorrow at Footes Lane.