The better side undoubtedly won – but they made it needlessly hard for themselves.
If you can have such a thing as too good a start, perhaps Raiders fell foul of it on Saturday because in the opening 80 seconds at Footes Lane they were imperious against Rochford Hundred.

Playing into the stiff breeze coming from the direction of the Grammar School, the home side reclaimed the ball from Callum Roberts’ kick-off and were immediately on the front foot working through the phases right up to the tryline, where Jordan Smiler dived over from a pick-and-go.

Charlie Davies added the conversion and they were seven points to the good with their opponents yet to touch the ball.

But a rugby match lasts 80 minutes, not just 80 seconds, and Raiders quickly turned into particularly generous hosts and Rochford were only too grateful to accept the opportunities on offer to rack up three tries and 19 points of their own before the clock had even reached 16 minutes.

A rolling maul resulted in hooker Caley Gray levelling the scores before a Guernsey clearance kick led to a swift counter-attack from which winger Charlie Owens touched down to put the visitors 12-7 ahead.

Five minutes later his fellow winger Seth Mokuolu was gathering a loose ball inside his own 22 and galloping away to extend the advantage and leave the Garenne Stand somewhat shell-shocked.

Fortunately, Guernsey’s forwards were dominant in the scrum throughout and that set-piece enabled them to get back on track as they enjoyed their best spell of the match in the second quarter.

One big shove against the head saw them earn a penalty which eventually led to captain Dom Rice powering over the line and moments later they were back on level terms when Roberts and Luke Sayer carved their way through the visiting defence and returned passes for the latter to score.

On the half-hour, Rochford’s concession of another penalty led to Guernsey’s bonus-point try from a driving maul started by Smiler’s brilliant one-handed take at full stretch from the lineout and finished by hooker Dan Morgan.

By half-time the lead had grown to 10, with the home pack again coming to the fore at scrum time, this time pushing Rochford off their own put-in before Charlie Davies opted to head down the short side and a couple of passes later Matt Creber was in at the corner.

However, Raiders were unable to carry that momentum into the second half, with the third quarter of the game only noteworthy for a yellow card to Jacob Pinkney, which Guernsey saw out without fret.

Midway through a stop-start half, almost out of nowhere, Rochford reduced their arrears as No 8 Maciu Nabogi took the direct route through a ruck to set up scrum-half Ewan Richmond for their fourth try.

However, almost immediately they lost Gray to the sin-bin and Guernsey made the most of their one-man advantage to put the game out of Rochford’s reach.

Roberts was on hand to score Raiders’ sixth try after Ciaran McGann had danced his way through a succession of would-be tacklers and then Smiler touched down for his second of the game when the pack pushed Rochford back over their own line at a 5m scrum.

The final home try saw forwards and back combine as powerful runs from Darrin Bellingham and Hugo Culverhouse were followed by Davies and Sayer skipping through a tackle apiece with the winger then racing away to score.

Davies added his fifth conversion of the day to bring up the 50 points for the hosts, but the day ended on a sour note for Guernsey as Rochford had the final word with Kyle Johnson ghosting his way through to score on 77min. and an altercation in the aftermath of the try resulted in a red card for Ethan Smith, for allegedly swinging a punch.