Reynolds tells his Raiders to relax ahead of Dorking trip
Raiders have been instructed to ‘go out and enjoy your rugby’ tomorrow as the stop-start nature of Guernsey’s season has left them slipping down the National Two East table due largely to inactivity.
Following the disappointment of having last week’s big clash with National Two East leaders Tonbridge Juddians postponed, Raiders head to third-placed Dorking for a re-arranged clash that was originally scheduled for November but fell foul of the weather.
Because it was meant to be a bye week, Guernsey will be without co-captain Lewis Hillier and in-form centre Ciaran McGann while Sam Steventon and Josh Poullet are also unavailable due to injury, but their director of rugby is taking a philosophical view of the situation.
‘We are quite relaxed this week. There’s no point looking at this as a stressful time – we want to remember why we play rugby, which is to enjoy it,’ Reynolds said.
‘When we moved from fifth to seventh in the table last week, I couldn’t care less because I don’t think the league will start showing its true colours until April when all the games have caught up.
‘We just have to keep on performing and picking up whatever points we can when we do play and see where that takes us.’
Reynolds admitted that having the game against TJs called off was ‘frustrating’, with an early call being made last Friday due to the financial risk of a team travelling over and potentially finding an unplayable pitch, but he is now fully focused on the threat Dorking pose with one key being having to deal with their carrying game.
‘They are a strong side who are pretty well balanced with a good backline and a good forward pack,’ he said.
‘They will be pretty upset by their one-point loss to Henley last week, so we know we will probably feel the backlash from that, but we have got a strong squad and have been encouraged by some of our performances recently.
‘Both teams will want to play with width and from our point of view, we just just want to play some rugby and get into the flow of it.’
Guernsey Raiders team
Dunn, Ceillam, Dromantas, Hackett, Webb, Welch, Creber, Colbourne, Boyland, Simmonds, N McGann, Dawe, Smith, Armstrong, Roberts. Replacements: Bray, Burger, Le Noury, Rutledge plus AN Other.
