Rovers book their place in the Stranger Cup final

After their first team secured their place in the Stranger Cup final thanks to an impressive 6-2 victory over the Island U18s on Friday night at the KGV, their ‘Reserves’ nearly pulled off a major shock on the same 3G in the Offshore Commercial Guernsey FA Cup as a squad that is basically the club’s third team twice came from behind to force extra-time against the FNB Priaulx League leaders Vale Rec.

Mark Romeril’s side lead at half-time through Will Fazakerley, but they were pegged back early in the second half when Scott Howitt equalised.

Brad O’Regan looked to have spared Rec’s blushes when he headed them in front again with 10 minutes of normal time remaining, but their battling opponents replied through Matt Philp from the penalty spot.

Vale’s superiority told in extra-time with Fazakerley completing a hat-trick to secure a 4-2 win, although they finished with 10 men with Chris Phillips sent off.

The night before on the 3G, Shay Goddard and Dale Webb had both scored twice for Rovers in their win over the Island U18s. There were also goals from Luke Ogier and Zach Masterton-Pipet.

Zac Batiste got both goals for the juniors.

The only first team match to go ahead on grass was in Alderney, where Nomads made it back-to-back home wins at Mount Hale as goals from Josh Concanen and Dean Carre gave them a 2-1 victory over St Martin’s to climb off the bottom of the table, albeit having played five games more than Bels.

Meanwhile, Guernsey Football League Management chairman Andy Robert has revealed that, due to weather-caused postponements, the season has reached March with half of the local fixture programme still to be fulfilled.

‘The priority are the leagues where there is an “Upton” game at the end of the season and in that respect we are not too bad,’ he said.

‘Overall, though, we still have 50% of games to play from the schedule at the start of the season.’