Guernsey fought back from a 21-7 half-time deficit to get within a successful conversion of earning a hard-fought draw away to Henley Hawks on Saturday, but ultimately succumbed to a 26-24 defeat.
However, director of rugby Jordan Reynolds was enthused by a lot of what he saw from a side that was missing several regulars and had to overcome losing another to injury within the first minute of the game.
‘I don’t think unlucky is the word because there are obviously areas to improve, but we only needed one thing to be slightly better to go on to win the game,’ Reynolds said.
‘It is always tough with the amount of guys we had out for the wedding or with injuries, so I thought it was a really courageous effort from the players.
‘We were highly frustrated at the end, but to come so close against a full-strength Henley when we were without numerous players, knowing we have plenty of room for improvement, and to still get two bonus points out of it is pretty encouraging.’
Raiders were playing into a strong, gusty wind in the first half and lost Niall McGann within 30 seconds as he took a blow to the head in making his first tackle of the game.
That forced the visitors into an early reshuffle and they fell behind on 10 minutes to a converted George Wood try.
Raiders got back on level terms just before the midway point of the half when Charlie Wilkinson scored on his competitive debut for the club and Ciaran McGann added the extras.
A subsequent 10-period with 14 men after a yellow card for Matt Creber was largely well-negotiated by Raiders, but they did concede two tries in quick succession in the closing stages of the half.
‘We were playing into a pretty gusty wind in the first half and probably only had about 10% of the ball, so we were defending for long periods and we had eight or nine penalties against us in the half. That really stemmed the flow of our attack,’ Reynolds said.
‘Charlie Wilkinson’s try was the only real time we built more than two or three phases. We were carrying well, the forward pack went to work and we scored under the posts.
‘At half-time we spoke about staying in the fight and we did that.’
Raiders clawed back a couple of tries in the third quarter with Dale Rutledge and Callum Roberts touching down. Ciaran McGann converted the first of those, so Raiders trailed by two up until the last five minutes.
Leo Webb then restored a seven-point lead for Hawks before Raiders responded in the final minute as Martinas Dromantas went over from a driving maul. The difficult conversion attempt was unsuccessful, though.
‘It was a tough one – either team could have won it, which is evident by the scoreline. There was not much between the two sides,’ Reynolds said.
‘It was four tries apiece, we missed two conversions, they missed one and that ultimately proved the difference, but it was gusty and they were tough conversions.
‘There were probably another two or three other moments where if we’d had another pre-season game or the same things happened next week, we probably would not make those mistakes, which was the difference.
‘Our backline were looking really threatening when they had the ball, but we only had a limited amount of possession. We created line breaks and opened up space, which was a real positive, but we just have to find a way of getting more possession moving forward.’
Raiders play their first home game of the season this Saturday when Dorking are the visitors to Footes Lane.
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