Raiders run in 11 tries to secure top-half finish

Guernsey secured a top-half finish in National Two East on Saturday as they put Worthing to the sword, winning 71-26 on the road.

Guernsey ran in 11 tries against the bottom side to end their campaign with a record of 14 wins and 12 defeats for a tally of 80 points and seventh place.

Going into the final day, there was a chance Raiders could climb as high as fifth, but Westcombe Park won away at Bury St Edmunds while Old Albanians got a bonus point on the road at Henley Hawks to stay ahead of them.

Dorking won the battle of the top two, beating champions Tonbridge Juddians 41-19.

While Guernsey were happy to finish their National Two East campaign with such a resounding triumph on the scoreboard, the performance was even more pleasing for director of rugby Jordan Reynolds as attention swiftly turns to trying to defend the Siam Cup this coming Saturday.

‘It was a real confidence boost for us ahead of the Siam,’ said the Raiders head coach after the 11-try romp.

‘There are maybe one or two things we need to work on defensively, but without getting ahead of ourselves, it was definitely an improvement from where we were against Sevenoaks.

‘The good thing is we really did not slow up and the temperature at the weekend was hot. Getting playing time in that sort of heat will benefit us with it likely to be similar conditions in Jersey.’

The bonus was Anthony Armstrong finishing the campaign as the leading try-scorer in the division as he touched down six times to take his season’s tally to 27, two ahead of Tonbridge Juddians’ Curtis Barnes.

‘He was down by five and ended up getting six – we worked pretty hard to get him the last couple,’ Reynolds said.

‘He had four in the first half and, by my reckoning, all in the space of about 12 minutes of rugby.

‘No-one was talking about it before the game, but by half-time everyone was like, “wait a minute, he could do this” and he came alive in the second half.’

Given the fact that Armstrong and his fellow winger Ethan Smith scored eight of the 11 tries between them, it would be understandable to jump to the conclusion that Raiders played an expansive game, but Reynolds refuted that assessment.

‘It was actually quite the opposite. We played fairly structured and tight rugby, but when the opportunity arose to play to width we did it within our structure.

‘It was fair from a loose game. We exited really well, put them under pressure and reaped the rewards from that.

‘It was similar to what we did at the start of the season and the confidence boost we got from it was really good going into this week.’

Although Raiders were first on the scoreboard thanks to the first of Liam Welch’s two tries, they actually fell behind as Worthing hit back with two tries of their own.

The hosts had little to crow about after that, though, even though they got a couple of late scores to pick up a bonus point.

Carter Hackett was Guernsey’s other try scorer on the day.

‘It just took us 10 minutes to settle, but in that time we still bombed three or four tries. After that, we were really dominant,’ Reynolds said.

‘We made a lot of changes at half-time and in pretty pivotal positions too, which was the plan, but we still managed to dominate, which was really positive.

‘That was exactly what we wanted from the weekend.’

Now the focus is purely on their annual clash with Jersey.

‘We have come through the last [league game], we have got a couple of niggles that we are looking at this week, but everyone wants to be involved and are keen to make themselves available.’