‘Excited’ Guernsey coach Reynolds targeting top six
GUERNSEY have set their sights high as they begin their new National Two East campaign tomorrow with a battle of the Raiders at Footes Lane.
After ending last season on the high of a Siam Cup success, director of rugby Jordan Reynolds emphasised the need for consistency throughout their league programme and with the influx of some new players as well as rejuvenated regulars that has led to a positive pre-season, he is not being coy on his target for 2024-25.
‘We want to be top six,’ he said.
‘We were really disappointed to be 10th [last season], although if you look at how the season panned out, we did really well to keep out of relegation.
‘But we actually think a lot more highly of ourselves than a relegation-battling team, so for us, we’ve set our stall out, we want to be in the top six and we know this weekend if we can get a five-point win, we give ourselves every chance to do it.
‘Our whole concept this week is that Worthing will try stopping us from getting into our goal, so we’ll take that on.
‘But to be in the top six is tough. If you look at the top eight teams last season, they’re all very good sides, so we know to be in the top six, we have to be a very good side but we have to do it consistently.’
There are set to be three home debutants tomorrow with Josh Poullet starting at No 8, John Dawe coming into the centres where Raiders are without the injured Tom Teasdale, while Nesta Nyamakazi will look to make an impact off the bench.
Worthing, who also use the Raiders nickname, are familiar foes for Guernsey, but does it help to start a season against a club you know well?
‘In all fairness, every other year I’d probably say yes, but I don’t really care – I’m just so excited to see this team now move into the league,’ said Reynolds, who has seen his side beat Bracknell and then push National One Rotherham Titans hard in their warm-up matches.
‘Where we were probably six or seven weeks ago to where we are now, it just feels different. There’s just a weird feeling in the team at the moment – exciting and you could see when we went into Rotherham there was this kind of nervous energy and then after the first tackle it was like, this is exciting. We’ve got a team here that really wants to compete.
‘Is it easier? It could be. But for me... we just came from a team meeting, I had like two clips of what to expect, and the rest was all about what we’re going to do. So for us, it’s the old cliche about focusing on ourselves, but to see the strides we’ve made lately, it’d be silly not to keep harnessing that.
‘I’m just excited. I couldn’t care less who we’re playing, to be honest. I’m just really keen to see us play.’
• Guernsey against Worthing kicks off at 2pm tomorrow at Footes Lane.
Guernsey Raiders team
Steventon, Ceillam, Currie, Hillier, Hackett, Creber, Rice, Poullet, Boyland, Simmonds, Smith, Dawe, C McGann, Armstrong, Roberts. Replacements: Burger, Nyamakazi, Welch, Thomas, N McGann.
