Raiders fail to hit the high notes as BSE spoil party

Bury St Edmunds were the Friday night party-poopers in front of a big Footes Lane crowd with the visitors thoroughly deserving 35-19 winners for a performance that was full of zip and intent.

From a Guernsey perspective, a rousing conclusion to the first half, in which the hosts scored a couple tries running into a strong wind to get within two points and seemingly have all the momentum going into the second 40 minutes, proved something of a false dawn. After the turnaround their execution deserted them against opponents who made light of two yellow cards to rack up a bonus-point victory.

To compound matters, injuries started to mount up for Raiders and by the end they were a mishmash of a side.

It just was not their night, and the early exchanges suggested that might well be the case as BSE used the wind at their backs to their advantage to score two tries in the opening quarter-of-an-hour.

Mike Stanway stretched for the line to give his side a fifth-minute lead that was doubled by his fellow winger Ciaran Leeson 10 minutes later.

Fullback Charlie Reed added both conversions in a game where he would end up with man-of-the-match claims for a terrific individual display.

It took Guernsey fully 25 minutes to pose a threat of their own going the other way, but once Malcolm Barnes spotted a gap to make a break that was well supported by Owen Thomas and Jordan Smiler, it sparked both the team and the crowd.

While the defence was keeping Guernsey within 14 points, the attack found some impetus and two tries within the last six minutes of the half narrowed that gap to two.

The first came straight off the training ground, with Callum Roberts coming in off his wing to receive Thomas’ pop pass and then turn on the afterburners as he ghosted through the BSE line and raced to the line with the sort of speed you would expect to see from an Island Games sprinter this summer. Thomas added the extras.

An overthrown BSE line-out deep inside their own 22 on the stroke of halfway then led to a 5m Raiders scrum from which Smiler broke from the base and although his offload initially went to ground, Anthony Armstrong managed to gather the bouncing ball before powering over in the corner.

Having been cheered into the dressing room at the interval for that recovery, Raiders failed to really get going again after the turnaround.

Reed’s pace and dancing feet came to the fore for BSE as they struck first in the second period, with Ollie Saddleton getting the touch down as he successfully chased a kick ahead.

Raiders responded with Roberts’ second try as he and Ciaran McGann combined well in midfield in the 54th minute with advantage being played, after which BSE lock Ben Kelland was sent to the sin bin.

But that was it as far as the Guernsey scoring was concerned, as the visitors never looked like a team playing with a man down for 18 of the final 26 minutes.

A sensational offload from Reed gave captain Matt Bursey a simple walk in for the bonus-point try and with 12 minutes to go replacement scrum-half Harry Hall snuck around the side of a scrum to score under the posts.

Reed got a yellow card with eight to go, but his bench forgave his indiscretion due to the impact he made in the previous 72 minutes.

‘I was really happy with our first-half. Into such a big wind, we dealt with a lot of pressure, we managed to get two tries, defensively I thought we were awesome,’ said Guernsey director of rugby Jordan Reynolds.

‘Second half, we just dropped off big time. We allowed them to get gain-line and credit to Burys, I thought they exploited us in the areas we didn’t really want them to exploit us.

‘We said their game-plan is heavy ball-carriers through their middles and then just play the edge and they did that.

‘If you notice, in the first half we didn’t let them get away with that – we actually sucked them into our game.

‘It’s just unfortunate that we couldn’t do that in the second half.’