Raiders pay price for failing to apply brake
SEVENOAKS snatched a last-gasp draw with a length-of-the-field try on Saturday to leave Jordan Reynolds uttering many different four-letter words with one in particular recurring – ‘dumb’.
He had seen his Raiders fight back from a 15-point deficit at one stage midway through the first half at Footes Lane to be leading by five going into the final minute of the game, when Guernsey were held up over the line.
That led to a goal-line drop out to the visitors and inexplicably the home side switched off, allowing Sevenoaks to regain possession before winger Jonathan Short sprinted the best part of 100 yards to score.
Although the conversion attempt was just wide, meaning Guernsey earned three points from the 28-28 draw, Reynolds was in no mood to mince his words.
‘Honestly, in my 16 years at this club, I’ve never seen a finish like that – God, we’re dumb,’ said the Guernsey coach.
‘It’s just crazy eh? It’s just literally common sense. It’s like putting a handbrake on in a car if you’re sitting on a hill, you’ve just got to know.
‘I was screaming down there that they were going to do it. I think we had four guys sitting in the short kick-off position – four guys spread across the park and everyone sitting in the middle.
‘He [the referee] had already said it was the last play, we should have had 13 up and just two sitting on the 30 – it’s just dumb.’
That moment of madness just compounded what the Guernsey coach called their ‘worst performance in years’.
‘It’s embarrassing, to be honest, because we are such a better side than that.
‘Today we were flat across the park and just allowed them to play constantly at us.
‘The frustration is they come off and they blame this, they blame that – it’s 80 minutes of poor performance against a team that should be at the bottom, to be honest, because we scored five tries to their three – do the maths.’
• Match report in Monday's Guernsey Press.
