Although the postponement of last night’s scheduled Priaulx League clash with North due to pitch conditions at Northfield denied the Port Soif outfit the chance to rise to second in the table and within four points of the leaders, coach Kevin Gillease admitted that he could not foresee even being in such a lofty position barely a week ago.
‘It is remarkable really that just one round of fixtures can make it a very different picture’ said the Rovers boss.
Gillease was referring to last Saturday when Northerners, who were seemingly runaway leaders having won their first seven matches, suffered their first defeat of the season away to champions St Martin’s, while Rovers beat Sylvans, meaning that both sides, and Saints, have now lost twice apiece.
‘It was a big win,’ said Gillease, referring to the importance to his side of their 2-1 success.
Rovers had led at half-time through Ben Le Tocq’s goal in his last appearance for the club before a move to London, only for Sylvans to fight back and equalise through Zac Batiste on the hour.
However, the home side had the last laugh at Port Soif as Luke Ogier hit a winner deep into stoppage time.
‘Performance-wise, it was not as good as we have been, but regardless of that, I was delighted with the win,’ Gillease said.
‘We started the game well and I felt we were the better side in the first half, but in the second half we never really got going and, to be fair, Sylvans were good and caused us lots of problems.
‘There was some really good defending from us – centre-backs Harry Henderson and Keir Donaldson were brilliant, and Adam Bullock made a couple of good saves too.
‘But the game never really looked like it would end 1-1, it always looked like someone would get a second, and luckily for us Luke Ogier scored a good goal to win it in around the 94th minute.
‘It is the best time to score in a game isn’t it? But we felt like we were due one of those because it seems like we probably haven’t had a last-minute win for a couple of seasons.’
Gillease went on to add a special word of praise for his departing captain Le Tocq as well as expressing his desire – and the side’s necessity – to keep Henderson and Donaldson fit going into 2026.
‘Ben has been a key player for us, he has been around the club since he was knee high to a grasshopper, so he will be a really big miss.
‘Every game we seem to have a different back four, which has been a real issue for us, but with Harry and Keir I really like them as a partnership at the back.
‘As a pairing, they compliment each other well, and from chatting to Harry after the game on Saturday, he says he loves to play alongside Keir, so hopefully we can get them to be a stable pair at centre-back.’
Looking ahead to the new year, Gillease is optimistic about achieving his goals for the season.
‘I am really happy with the way we have finished the back end of the first half of the season – we have been picking up both performance-wise and results,’ he said.
‘We are also now getting that little bit of luck in games, which we did not seem to get earlier in the season, going right back to the 4-3 defeat at North when we went down to a late goal, we then dropped points against Sylvans at St Peter’s when they were down to 10 and we conceded a late equaliser against Rec as well.
‘If one or two of those results had gone our way, the table could have a completely different look to it, but that’s how fine the margins are.
‘But I have got to be really happy with our lads, especially the younger ones coming in like Charlie Robilliard, Liam Mahy and Sam Bookless. In their first Priaulx season they have been outstanding and it has been no coincidence that our upturn has come with them settling into the top flight.
‘We are out of the Wheway and Jeremie, so we can focus fully on the league now.
‘I said at the start of the season I would like to win some silverware and nothing has changed, and we want to push as high as we can up the league.
‘We might have given ourselves a bit too much of a mountain to climb [in terms of being title contenders] with our slow start, but out of nowhere if we had played and beaten North this week, suddenly we would have been only four points off the top.’
The Priaulx League resumes on 13 January. This Saturday there are three Guernsey FA Cup ties before the Stranger Cup kicks off on 2 January.
