Rested Raiders expect a tough day in Henley

With Jordan Reynolds having given his squad the week off following their victory over Bury St Edmunds a fortnight ago, to make the most of their first bye weekend a few players headed off island and the subsequent fog-inflicted travel delays left them unable to return in time for Tuesday’s training session.

However, the head coach believes the strong performances his side have produced in the first two months of the season, which have resulted in them sitting second in National Two East with seven bonus-point wins from eight games, will hold them in good stead, despite the disruption.

‘You could see it in the performance against Burys that the energy levels were running low – if we had played them in the third or fourth week, I think that performance would have been different,’ said Reynolds of their narrow 36-35 victory in their last outing.

‘Playing eight weeks in a row is draining, not just physically but mentally too, and hopefully the rest will have been good for us.’

The resume their campaign with another top-five clash, with Henley having won five and drawn one of their eight games.

In their most recent outing, they scored nine tries in a 55-34 win at Worthing, although that result largely went again the trend of their earlier displays.

‘They have gone through a little bit of a change in their squad this season and although they are not a particularly high-scoring side, they are able to keep teams pretty limited themselves, so it is going to be pretty tough,’ Reynolds said.

‘There are not any weak sides in the league, but Henley have always been one of the top competitors – they have been keeping a lot of teams to a couple of tries and have won a couple of their matches by a converted try or less, which shows that they are competitive across all parts of the game.

‘Traditionally, Henley rely on their mauling game, but they are always very quick across the park, especially at the breakdown where they look to compete a lot.

‘In a lot of our games so far, we have had to deal with real physical battles and carrying to the gain-line has been important, so you’ve got to stay connected as well as you can, but also coming off the line and putting the opposition under pressure.

‘Henley like to be deep and wide, though, in a similar way to Burys. If we can get it right, we have shown we can deal with it – if not it’s going to be a really tough day.

‘We have had some really close encounters with them over the years, been unlucky a couple of times when we have “scored” at the death and had them disallowed, but we have not been able to beat them away. The fact that we are on the road again means it will be a difficult challenge for us.’

Guernsey are set to be without both their co-captains for the trip.

Dom Rice suffered a dislocated ankle and fractured fibula in that win over Burys, while Lewis Hillier has dislocated a finger.

‘Lewis has been having some issues, but hopefully we will be able to bring in Brad Webb. He has not featured often for us this season, but he has been training well and competing well for Vikings,’ said Reynolds, who is likely to welcome back Tom Ceillam from injury.