Raiders have had too many ‘could-have-won’ matches

‘I have been speaking to Malcolm [Barnes, assistant coach] every single day about what training he has been running and selections based on what he has seen, so as far as I’ve been away, I’ve still been close as well,’ said Jordan Reynolds, who spent Christmas in his native Australia and returned to Guernsey this week.

He admitted, too, that he awoke at 2am last Sunday morning down under to keep up to date with Guernsey’s first game of the new year, which ended in that heartbreaking 27-26 defeat to Henley Hawks on Saturday our time.

‘Megan [Barnes, team manager] was keeping me updated throughout the game and I watched the footage the next morning,’ Reynolds said.

So, even from the other side of the world when he was supposed to be enjoying time off with his family, he was able to offer a critique of his team, who had taken a 26-12 lead into the final quarter of the game against the Hawks.

‘We had full control then in the last 20 minutes we seemed to drop off. To be honest, especially in those conditions when it should have been fairly easy to hold them at bay, we could have defended better, but with a couple of missed tackles on halfway they were suddenly up in our 22.

‘It is a real head-scratcher and the boys were disappointed, but we keep saying that we have only got ourselves to blame. The biggest issue was we lost a lot of momentum in the last 20 and never got it back.

‘For us, we are disappointed with the season to date in that we have had a lot of games we could have won that we didn’t and we need to turn those into games we win rather than just saying “we could have”.’

Raiders hope to start that tomorrow away in Norfolk to second-bottom North Walsham, a side who Guernsey beat 58-17 at Footes Lane back in September.

However, as Reynolds pointed out, the stats do not tell the whole story.

‘They scored three tries late on in the game against us having had a man sent off early on in the first half,’ he said.

‘Yes, we put a lot of points on them, but that was down to them being 14 men for much of the game.

‘Now we are playing them in even harder circumstances because North Walsham have picked off some good sides at home – they beat Henley, which we haven’t done twice, and they gave Sevenoaks a real serving – and they are desperate for points, so they are going to play desperate, push hard for a win and you know you will get their best from them.

‘I have been reminding the boys “remember when we have been in a relegation battle and how hard we fought”, so we know heading up there, it’s going to be tough.’

Raiders remain without captain Lewis Hillier and neither Doug Horrocks nor Jordan Smiler are available this week, so James Burger returns to the squad, having impressed for Vikings recently.

Reynolds is also waiting on a fitness test for Callum Roberts, who could take a place among the replacements.

‘We hope Callum could be back this week – he has had quite an extensive period out, but he has been training. We hope to give him some minutes off the bench,’ said the coach, before turning his attentions to the game-plan.

‘I think it is going to be fairly wet, but to be fair I thought we attacked well in the wet last week, especially in the first half.

'If we had put those two-on-one chances we created out wide away, it would have been a different story.

‘So we have got to make sure we convert our opportunities and they have got a pretty wide pitch, which we could utilise, although a lot will be determined by which way the wind is blowing.

‘We also have to be stronger in that contact area, win the collisions, get over the gain-line and turn pressure into points.’

Raiders team

Steventon, Ceillam, Currie, M Thomas, Webb, Burger, Creber, Rice, Simmonds, O Thomas, Sayer, McGann, Smith, Armstrong, Davies. Replacements: Pinkney, Morgan, Culverhouse, Boyland, Roberts/Bailey.