Bailey plays a full part in crucial Raiders win
AS ANY of his new teammates will tell him, playing for Raiders comes with its up and downs.
However, for a day or two at least, 18-year-old debutant Oscar Bailey can enjoy the fact that he played a full part in a crucial 34-17 home victory over Canterbury on Saturday, showing no signs of the nerves he would have surely been feeling with a confident display, never shirking from his responsibilities on the wing and earning the praise of his head coach in the process.
‘He had a great game, didn’t he, for his debut – taking some high balls off the kick off, tackled well, carried well. He should be really happy because I don’t think many would have a debut like that unless we shipped them in from somewhere else,’ Jordan Reynolds said.
‘For a kid who’s 18, absolute credit to him. You can see why he has been playing well for Vikings. It was a pretty easy call for us to have him with us today.’
Raiders took the full five points thanks to a five-try performance with Brad Webb, Ethan Smith, Ciaran McGann, Charlie Simmonds and Hugo Culverhouse touching down.
Although a second-half spell in which they conceded two tries in quick succession meant the margin of victory was not quite as comprehensive as it might have been, for Reynolds it was a job well done.
‘Obviously there was a little blip. They kept throwing everything at us and Canterbury have been one of the top sides of the National League for a very long time, so you are not always going to keep them out.
‘We made some changes and there was about eight minutes when we let those two tries in, but I’m not going to take that away from Canterbury, those two tries were really well worked and we will be a little bit disappointed on a couple of the missed tackles.
‘But 95% of our defence today, and that was our focus, was excellent. I was really proud of our defensive efforts today, the boys were really courageous in trying to get off that line and put their ball-carriers to ground.
‘You could see the difference when they tried to play wide, especially in the first half of the second half, we were closing them down and forcing those passes over the top – exactly what we wanted to bring in, so really happy with the boys on that one.’
Match report in Monday's Guernsey Press.
