Guernsey Raiders v Esher - Saturday 11 October, 2pm (Footes Lane)
Whenever Guernsey have come up against the Surrey club previously in the fourth tier of the league ladder, ‘Es’ have done the home-and-away double over them on their way to being crowned champions in both 2022 and 2024, but twice the green-and-whites have come agonisingly close to pulling off an upset.
‘The last time we played them at home, there was less than a score in it and we were in their 22 at the end and one big scrum did not go our way,’ said Guernsey director of rugby Jordan Reynolds.
‘We also lost by a whisker at their place once and were leading right up to the last score, by which time we had one of the St Jacques forwards, Mitch Smith, on the wing for us.’
Following their relegation from National One last season, Esher look set to be among the title contenders once again this campaign as they are level on points with National Two East leaders Old Albanians with both sides having won four of their opening five matches. Esher’s sole defeat came at Bury St Edmunds.
However, they have had to work very hard for each of those wins with a couple coming by less than five points. Does that suggest that Esher are not quite the force they were in their previous promotion seasons?
‘I think it’s too early to tell,’ Reynolds said.
‘Every team in this league is really strong. If you look at two seasons ago when Esher were last in National Two, they were a cut above everyone else in general and a real force to come up against. Now I think as a division it has got a little bit better across the board, so it will be really interesting to see how we shape up against them this week.
‘Even last year when you were looking at the fixtures there were some games where you thought there would be a bit of a reprieve for the boys – you could perhaps afford to be at 80% and still get the job done – but in this league this year if you are not at 100% in any game, you are in trouble.’
Following their own tough start to the campaign which saw then lose their first three matches including against the two other sides currently sitting in the top three along with Esher, Raiders have started to build some momentum with back-to-back victories over Oundle and Oxford Harlequins.
Despite tomorrow’s weather forecast being much better than the strong winds they encountered last week as Storm Amy swept across Britain, Reynolds wants to build on a certain aspect of that performance on the road in Oxford.
‘The best thing we took out of last week was the fact that we rolled up our sleeves and worked really hard. We had to push ourselves outside of our comfort zone and from 1-20 the boys stuck to the task,’ he said.
‘We had to make 177 tackles and we only missed 13, Quins had to make 183 tackles and missed 32 of them. That shows the determination we had.
‘In the games against OAs and Dorking, I don’t feel we had that sort of fight in us, but I was impressed with how everyone individually got up for that game last week and we should be taking that approach into Esher.
‘Esher’s strength is their backline – it’s quality across the park. Their fly-half is very good, their centres are strong and their back three are really quick.’
The Raiders head coach has delayed naming his side for the match while he waits on fitness updates on several players.
He did add, though, that is was pleasing to see James Burger gets his first minutes of the season coming off the bench last week against Quins.
Raiders against Esher kicks off at 2pm 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.