Guernsey pack dominance key to first win on the road

The margin of their 40-26 victory at Rochford Hundred does not tell the whole story of a nip-and-tuck match that went down to the wire with Raiders scoring the final try with time in the red, but resilience and a positive mindset got them over the line.

‘It was definitely a good result – that’s our first away win and it is a tough place to go,’ said Guernsey director of rugby Jordan Reynolds.

‘We did it the hard way a little bit, which is sort of the story of our season, but instead of drawing or losing as we have done from similar positions, we managed to get the win.

‘The scoreline probably makes it look a bit more comfortable than it was, because we were under a lot of pressure in the last five or six minutes when we were only up by seven, but we managed to turn the ball over and get another try right at the end.

‘You could see how pleased everyone at the final whistle – not just the players and coaches but we also seemed to have more supporters there than they did.’

Reynolds reported that the win was largely based on a dominant performance from the pack, who put their Rochford counterparts under huge pressure through the game.

Guernsey scored three tries in either half, with Tom Ceillam and Ciaran McGann touching down twice apiece while Charlie Davies and Hugo Culverhouse also got on the scoresheet.

The sides were level at 21-all going into the interval before the visitors started the second half strongly to open up a 12-point lead.

The hosts fought back in the final quarter, though, getting back within seven with an unconverted try before pushing hard to try to salvage a draw.

‘We got two yellow cards in the game – one for Anthony Armstrong in the first half and the other for Dom Rice in the second – and that’s when they got a lot of their points,’ Reynolds said.

‘At 26-33, we had a lot of heat on us for a good five or six minutes, but then we managed to turn the ball over, Sam Boyland made a break and we then camped in their 22, won a couple of penalties before Hugo managed to score after a few phases.

‘When they had the heat on us, it almost felt the same as the Sevenoaks game where we started to implode a little bit, but we got away with it slightly. The difference for us was we could have gone into our shell and kicked the ball out when we won back possession, but we didn’t, we continued playing and went up the other end to score again.

‘That was a change in our mindset because we didn’t panic, time was up and we kept hammering them to make sure they did not get the double bonus for finishing within seven.’

Reynolds added that there were ‘loads of standout performances’ from his team and name-checked Lewis Hillier, Matt Creber and Sam Steventon before settling on praising the pack as a whole.

‘Our scrum, against one of the better packs in the league, was just so dominant – I’d say it was the difference on the day.

‘They had no clean ball from it all day and we were picking up penalties for fun.’

One negative from the day was a tweaked hamstring for fly-half Owen Thomas, who had to come off around the hour mark having converted four of five tries scored while he was on the field. Davies converted Culverhouse’s last-minute score.