Guernsey Raiders v Oundle - Saturday 27 September, 3pm (Footes Lane)
The Northamptonshire-based club earned promotion to National Two East by winning Regional One South East last season with a perfect-record of 22 wins from 22 games, and although they lost their opener 39-24 against Havant, Oundle got off the mark with an impressive bonus-point away win in a high-scoring game at Bury St Edmunds before beating London Welsh 50-38 last week to move into the top five.
Guernsey director of rugby Jordan Reynolds has delayed naming his side for the match as he tries to navigate his way through an injury crisis which played a big part in last weekend’s sobering 70-point defeat at National Two East leaders Old Albanians, but he emphasised that tomorrow’s encounter should been seen as an opportunity by his squad.
‘Oundle are new to the division and off to a flier, so they look like they’re going to be a really formidable outfit,’ he said.
‘If you look at their squad, they have an endless list of Championship players and some Premiership players, too, so it will be a great challenge for us. Considering the position we are in at the moment from last week, the big aim for us is to have some sort of reaction.
‘A good thing for us is that while Oundle are quality opposition, what they are going to throw at us is going to be a little bit more irrelevant than usual because there is so much we have to try to fix that our focus is on ourselves to make the improvements needed. If we can get that right, we can compete in the game.
‘We are very much back to basics at the moment and we just want a really tough grind from our players.’
Reynolds reported that there were due to be ‘three or four’ fitness tests at training last night before he decides on his starting XV, but added that some familiar faces could be involved as ‘we have managed to pull a few people out of semi-retirement’ to help cope with the injury problems.
Raiders against Oundle kicks off at 3pm tomorrow at Footes Lane.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.