Guernsey scored 10 tries in total, split evenly between the two halves, to win their important clash with London Welsh comprehensively, 62-29, with a rampant Ant Armstrong touching down four times on an afternoon when the green-and-white backs did anything but bask in the sunshine while their pack were outstanding in the set-piece.
‘We worked really hard this week to make sure we had a load of detail around our game,’ said Raiders head coach Jordan Reynolds.
‘Welsh obviously compete heavily at the breakdown, so we wanted to win those collisions on both sides of the ball. We really took after them on Tuesday and Thursday in training and then tried to replicate that on a Saturday, and I think we got it.
‘Really happy, obviously, with the scoreline, but performance-wise was excellent. I thought our set-piece went really well today, we put a lot of pressure on their line-out, but our backline was in a different hemisphere today. They really put Welsh under a lot of pressure and I think that was a huge difference for us.’
Raiders had began the day 10th in National Two East, with the heavy defeat away to title contenders Bury St Edmunds a week earlier having forced them into some anxious glances towards the bottom of the table.
However, their latest home victory took them onto 60 points and above their opponents as well as Havant in the standings up to eighth. The gap to the bottom three is 11 points.
‘We always said we probably had to win two out of the four to go,’ Reynolds said.
‘If we can put another performance like that against Canterbury at home, then I don’t think there’s too much worry about that.
‘So for us, yes, obviously we’ve got a sight on what the ladder looks like, but I can go home and sleep well tonight thinking that there’s something there again, because last week it was quite the opposite of that.’
