Guernsey Press

Raiders queue for doctor continues to grow

JORDAN REYNOLDS is not considering buying a lottery ticket any time soon.

Published
Jordan Reynolds, centre, with assistant coach Steve Melbourne and Raiders' medic Francesca McLuskey. (23462314)

The cost of last week’s defeat to Redruth has increased during the week and as well as losing both Owen Clemett and Elia Morisio to the injury jinx that has blighted Guernsey this season, Nick Merrien is also sidelined now having strained ligaments in his elbow.

Although named in the provisional side to face Barnes tomorrow, both Cameron Craine and Matt Thomas require late fitness tests too.

‘I’m kind of resigned to the fact that we are not going to get any help from whoever is watching over us,’ said Reynolds, who is grateful that Blair Campbell is returning from holiday just in time to help him out in the backline.

‘One of the good things about our squad is how honest we are with each other and even last season when we were winning games and top of the table, we stayed honest in our assessments to continue to improve.

‘But when you are on a losing streak like this one with all the injuries we’ve had, you do need to temper that honesty and try to be positive.

‘We cannot sit back and just wait for a change of luck, so I want us to relax a bit, try to attack a bit more and start playing some rugby we can enjoy and see what comes off the back of it.’

Barnes will fancy gaining revenge when they visit Footes Lane tomorrow.

Guernsey registered their inaugural National Two South victory over them in September, but have only added one more win to their tally since and now lie bottom of the league while tomorrow’s opponents, who also came up from London & SE Premier last year, have racked up seven victories for mid-table security.

‘I have not heard anything from our players this week about the last result we had against Barnes – all the talk is about how to improve on last week,’ he said.

‘Barnes will be hot favourites, but we are at home and if we can play in the right channels and be more physical than we were last week when we were not cleaning out properly and spending too much time on the ground – all these things are the non-skill aspects we keep talking about – then we will give ourselves a chance.

‘Barnes have had a fantastic season really. They have gone through both winning and losing runs, but generally they have performed really well and defensive-wise they are very good.

‘Their whole idea will be to attack us wide – we got them away from that by drawing them into a battle up front when we beat them earlier this season and this time they will try to avoid that at all cost.’

  • Raiders v. Barnes kicks off at 2pm tomorrow.

Raiders provisional team:

Craine, Ceillam, Steventon, Hillier, M. Thomas, Shannon, Rice, Horrocks, Alexandre, O. Thomas, Ahne, Campbell, Jones, Aremu, Armstrong. Replacements: L. Batiste, Baron, Creber, Teasdale, Gladstone.

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