‘The celebrations, although shorter, were met with the same enthusiasm,’ said Guernsey director of rugby Jordan Reynolds after his side saw off the old enemy on Saturday in the first inter-island league clash in over 30 years.
‘Though it was a league game, everyone was really pleased after it – and funnily enough frustrated that we did not win by more, and from our group’s point of view that shows the hunger is there to keep improving.’
While the hosts opened the scoring early on at Coinshares Park thorugh a Daniel Hawkes try, Guernsey quickly took control of the match and were good value for their bonus-point victory, touching down three times in either half as they made it back-to-back away wins to start their league campaign.
Prop Joe Wrafter scored the first Raiders try with Anthony Armstrong and John Dawe also going over in the first half.
The lead was only a single point at the break, though, with Guernsey having allowed George Willmott a soft try with Hawkes adding his second conversion of the game.
However, after the turnaround Guernsey were dominant with Matt Creber getting his name on the scoresheet before Dawe scored his second try and Matt Armstrong finished things off. Gwyn Parks added the extras for all three tries after the break.
Mark Boarer went over for Jersey’s only score of the second period against the run of play on a day when they had the younger of the Armstrong brothers, Lance, starting on the wing in opposition to siblings Anthony and Matt.
‘It was a very good performance. I though we took a step forward from where we were last week against Leicester Lions,’ Reynolds said.
‘I don’t think the scoreline actually reflected the game. In the second half Jersey only had 18% territory – they only got into our half on one occasion.
‘We were fairly dominant, we just had some issues around our line-out which meant we did not get a couple more tries.
‘They scored first in the game, but after that in the first half we dominated the scrum, dominated phase play and dominated territory and scored three really good tries to their two, one of which we gifted them.
‘The second half was the same – we dropped the ball trying a set move and they picked it up and scooted away to score – so although that was disappointing, the fact that we are two games in, we’ve had to face two of our tougher away games, we have not been firing on all cylinders yet but we are picking up five points with room for improvement is great.
‘We made some good strides from week one to week two, which shows the boys are taking on the learnings from the games and we will get things to click soon, which means some team could be on the end of a big score.’
When it came to standout individual performances, Reynolds initially responded by saying, ‘you could name loads of players’, but he eventually restricted himself to three of his try scorers.
‘Joe Wrafter had a really good game, Dawesy was excellent through the centres and Matt Armstrong playing at fullback is getting back to his best.’
The bonus-point victory leaves Raiders as one of three sides with the maximum 10 points after two rounds of fixtures along with Oundle and Old Albanians ahead of their first home game of the season this coming Saturday when they host Henley at Footes Lane.
