Travel delays and some apparent gamesmanship from the home side’s new head coach, former England fullback Mike Brown, meant that Guernsey took to the field ‘cold’ and soon found themselves behind.
However, spurred on by what had happened pre-game, they quickly turned things around and although it was a tight, tough game, Jordan Reynolds felt his side were good value for their win in the end.
‘Mike Brown refused to allow us time to warm up, which led to me and him having some heated words,’ said the Guernsey director of rugby.
‘We were allowed just 20 minutes to get changed and prepared, which was very strange. We have obviously had delays before and every other club has been pretty good in that scenario.
‘I understand being competitive, but I think there’s a human element to it as well because player safety should come into it and you should be able to warm up properly.
‘Our guys used it as fuel on the day and while it probably took us five minutes or so to get going in the match, we dominated big parts of the game after that, which was pleasing.
‘It can take up to 30 minutes to get into a game if you haven’t warmed up properly, but as soon as they scored the first try we went on the assault.’
Liam Thornton’s early try was converted by Alex Wainwright to give Esher a seven-point lead, but midway through the first half Anthony Armstrong went over in the corner for an unconverted try to get Raiders on the scoreboard.
Ten minutes later Ethan Smith went over for their second try, which Tom Teasdale converted, to put them ahead for the first time.
Owen Waters slotted over a Esher penalty before half-time to narrow the Guernsey lead to 12-10 at the break.
The hosts forged ahead with a converted James Botterill try early in the second half, but again the Raiders response was strong.
It took them, though, until the 76th minute for them to eventually breakthrough the home defence for the winning score as Armstrong touched down again before Charlie Simmonds added the extras from a tight angle.
‘Esher’s kicking game was pretty good and probably better than ours, but in terms of possession, territory and certainly at scrum-time we were on top of them,’ Reynolds said.
‘In the second half there was a stage when we were camped in their 22 for about 13 minutes. It would have been great to have scored a couple more tries, but Esher defended really well to be fair, for the amount of pressure we put them under.
‘Our scrum was just dominating Esher’s, which was good, and it really kept us in the game and put a strangle hold on them. There were one or two big moments that would normally frustrate us, like their nine picking the ball from our eight’s feet, but we stuck at it.
‘When we scored with about four minutes to go, it was on the sideline and Charlie Simmonds stepped up and slotted the conversion over from there to give us the lead. We then held possession to the finish.’
Unsurprisingly, when it came to naming player-of-the-match contenders, Reynolds simply listed his starting front row of Martinas Dromantas, Michael Cantle and Charlie Currie as well as their replacements from off the bench Jamie Dunn and Nick Selway.
‘The way our scrum went on the day, you cannot got past the front row and our pack as a whole. I believe it won us the game,’ the Raiders coach said.
‘Any time they had the feed it was either scrappy ball or a penalty to us because we were on top of them.
‘When you name our try-scorers, it sounds like because the wingers scored it must have been width-to-width rugby, but it definitely wasn’t. It was still wet underfoot and it was pretty difficult to shift the ball, so we focused on the set-piece and being dominant in the scrum.
‘In truth, Ant had to take some pretty ordinary passes to score, although Ethan’s try was really well worked to be fair, as we went down the short-side and there was some good handling.’
With this victory coming off the back of the bonus-point win against Oxford Harlequins a week earlier, Raiders are starting to build some momentum, although they have to wait until Valentine’s Day before they are back in action at home to Sevenoaks.
Reynolds believes there will be good vibes in the camp in the interim.
‘You get an away win and it’s always a good day,’ he said.
‘We actually had a fair few supporters there and they were the noisiest there, even up against some pretty vocal Esher support.
‘Esher were full of energy. They were 10 times better than when we played them at Footes Lane. They played for the full 80 and were motivated. Mike Brown has come in and changed their mindset. I think if they were going to put in a big performance, it was going to be that day.
‘We have had some games like that, which have been tight, and we have lost, but we have also had some that we have won – you think back to the Oundle game at home and what an amazing finish that was.
‘This one is really character-building for us. Yes, there is a lot we need to improve on, but to go to Esher and grind that win out was a fantastic effort from our guys and I think they were excited rather than relieved at the end.
‘We have had a pretty tough run, but this was a boost for the boys.’
