Guernsey conceded 13 tries as they were thumped 87-17 by the early-pacesetters in National Two East, but perhaps more concerning is that the injuries continue to mount up with Phil Le Noury, Ciaran McGann, and Josh Poullet all having to be withdrawn in the opening 25 minutes during which time Charlie Simmonds was also sin-binned. Others picked up knocks too.
‘About 20 minutes into the game we’ve had five injuries – it just happened really quickly,’ said head coach Jordan Reynolds, who was already missing his entire starting front row from the previous week as well as other regulars.
‘Ethan Smith took a blow to the arm but he ended up staying on because we had no-one left to bring on. He was really struggling, but fair play to him for pushing through it as best he could.
‘In saying that, that’s not an excuse for leaking tries because we were already leaking tries before the first injury, but it just compounded the problem from there.
‘Obviously we are disappointed with ourselves – to ship 87 points is huge for us. All of us have reflected on it, it has been a tough couple of days of reflection, and we have to take responsibility as a group.
‘OAs fired every shot they could and they were really effective whereas we looked like we had shut up shop after about 10 minutes. It was like chasing shadows after that.’
Raiders did manage to score three tries themselves with Matt Creber, Dom Rice and Liam Welch touching down and Callum Roberts adding a conversion.
However, Reynolds admitted that his side are not posing their usual threat in attack.
‘OAs are full of confidence and when that is the case every ball goes to hand and they had a great off-loading game.
‘We were clunky when we had the ball and our attack has not really fired that well this season. That is on me, but at the moment we are making a lot of changes to the way we attack because of who is available and we are also just lacking some confidence, so maybe we need to encourage the boys to unleash the shackles a bit and if we make mistakes, so be it.’
Despite the result and the nature of the performance, though, Reynolds was able to take a couple of positives from the weekend as there were first appearances for the season off the bench from Charlie Currie and Anthony Armstrong.
‘Ant had a really effective game considering it was his first game since the [CI v Sweden] international and has been out for much of the pre-season,’ the coach said.
‘Charlie Currie being back is also a real positive because he is a huge part of our squad and has been out since last October, so to give him a few minutes and seeing him on the park was satisfying.’
Reynolds added that Tom Teasdale, John Dawe and Niall McGann are ‘not far off’ returning to action.
‘It’s not all doom and gloom because when we start bringing these other guys back in, it will bolster the squad and that will create a more positive environment,’ he said.
‘At the moment, we have to try and galvanise ourselves and find a way through it. That’s not just through the injuries, what we have to do as well is mentally pick ourselves up.’
Raiders are back in action at home this Saturday when they welcome Oundle in a 3pm kick-off.
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