The Reds were resounding 5-0 winners in the Junior Muratti and the scoreline did not flatter the visitors, who had five different goalscorers.
‘Disappointing performance, if I’m honest, I don’t think we showed our true ability as a group today, for whatever reason,’ said Guernsey U18s coach Leon Meakin.
‘I think individually and collectively, we were well short of what we can be, what we’ve shown in the build-up. But, you know, these things happen Muratti day.
‘We got off to an okay start, and then a couple of mistakes creep in and confidence just seemed to drain out of the players.
‘I’ve been really pleased with the build-up we’ve had, just the day itself didn’t go as we would have liked. But credit to Jersey, I thought they played really well.’
Playing with the help of a stiff wind at their backs, Jersey took the lead in the 18th minute through Callum Gilroy, but the crucial blow for the hosts came when they conceded a second just moments before half-time as player-of-the-match Stanley Dunne doubled the advantage.
‘If we had got into the changing room at half-time one down rather than two, then it is a slightly different team talk,’ Meakin said.
‘We tweaked the shape a little bit at the start of the second half to try and get on the front foot and use that wind to our advantage, but we never really got going.
‘I think we were taking too many touches at times on the pitch and it slowed down the game for us.’
Jersey pulled away from the Greens with second-half goals from Conor O’Keeffe, Casey Nixon and Joey O’Toole.
‘The message at half time was, “look, we can play a lot better than we have done that first 45 minutes” and we had to believe in ourselves and get on the front foot and with the wind, use it to our advantage by helping us get higher up the pitch and close the ball down higher up the pitch,’ said Meakin.
‘We were just that half-a-second too slow in our press today, just took an extra touch when we got the ball and we weren’t moving it quickly enough.
‘Jersey were just that little bit quicker everywhere else on the pitch, picking up second balls, and their confidence grew throughout the match and ours just shrunk, unfortunately.’
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