A five-try performance from green-and-whites made it five bonus-point wins out of five as they had to show real Guernsey grit as well as skill to come out on top of a thrilling clash that had virtually everything – including five yellow cards.
Four of those were for the hosts, with three coming in a dramatic second half when the referee did not endear himself to either the Raiders or the large, vocal crowd, but that made the hard-fought 35-26 victory that much more sweet for them.
‘I thought there was a lot of areas we really dominant in,’ said Guernsey director of rugby Jordan Reynolds.
‘You could see their style of play is to go edge to edge, but they couldn’t even break us when we were down three guys in the bin, so I was really proud of the boys about that.
‘That kind of win looked a little bit like that Wallabies one against South Africa, having to close out a game. But I just said to the players, the absolute heart that we showed was great, because the easy thing would have been just to complain to the ref – I’m sure we’re all going to have a chat upstairs with the officials around the 10-3 second-half penalty count.
‘But the boys just dug in, they found a way to come out on top and to get a win like that under those really trying conditions was great for us.’
The result leaves Raiders as just one of two side still unbeaten in the league along with leaders Oundle, who are top by virtue of their superior points difference.
Reynolds admitted that his side’s excellent start to the season coupled with the resilience they showed in the face of adversity on Saturday has them reassessing their goals for the campaign.
‘I think we’re thinking bigger things now. Once you start to get that belief, it’s great,’ he said.
‘But, we’ve got another tough game away to Dorking this week. Can we go there and make a massive improvement from this week?
‘It’s going to be tough because that win would have taken a lot out of our group at the moment. But I can tell you, it won’t be hard to fill up the fuel tank after that when you’re watching that one back.’
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