HELLIER SHINES IN LOSS

A close encounter for the young Raiders side.

If the fog delay and hanging about at airports was not frustrating enough, an injury to stand-in skipper Malcolm Barnes added to the overall pain on the club’s final away trip of the National Three London & SE season. Guernsey travelled with as many as 10 starting players out for this fixture which gave opportunities for our future stars to experience National league exposure.

Fortunately, Wimbledon beat Shelford so fifth place is secure with just the home game against Colchester to come in a fortnight.

With the fog delay kick-off was ultimately pushed back to 3pm, but the visitors started well enough.

Just 10 minutes in Guildford were caught off side and Kenny Hellier kicked us 3-0 ahead.

Disappointingly, Raiders immediately returned the favour with Guildford going for a catch and drive line out in the Guernsey 22. Raiders were forced to pull down the following maul and in a second catch and drive move, this time Raiders held up the home team forwards before clearing their lines.

Raiders had their own opportunities via two catch and drives in the home team’s 22, but akin to the day’s frustrations both line out throws went astray and resulted in the ball being cleared.

But half-an-hour in Raiders went further ahead.

A scrum in the Guildford 22 allowed Raiders to benefit from a simple move between Adam Nixon at 10 and centre Luke Jones who, on receiving the ball just sauntered over the whitewash for a good try.

With Hellier converting we were 10-0 to the good.

All seemed well at that point for a double over the Surrey side, but with the half petering out Raiders conceded a penalty which Guildford quickly took and ran in a try of their own to the joy of the home crowd.

Although the conversion was missed at 5-10 they were back in the game at half time.

For the second half Raiders introduced young Ben Holland for Malcolm Barnes who had injured his shoulder.

Guildford immediately got the home crowd cheering again with a few phases of play which ended with a second try, again the conversion attempt was missed, but the crowd were further encouraged as their team won a penalty and went for the catch and drive in the Raiders corner.

It worked a treat and with a converted try they were 17-10 ahead.

With so many senior players missing and others playing out of position, Raiders were misfiring.

Forays into the home team’s half were few and far between and a yellow card for Matt Thomas added further misery to the green and whites.

The penalty that followed increased the score to 20-10 and with 10minutes left Guildford drove over from a maul and with the conversion successful were safely ahead at 27-10.

With the final whistle beckoning Guildford again missed a penalty chance, but to Raiders’ credit they then fought their way back into the Guildford half.

With a penalty awarded but not enough time to go for a line-out Raiders spun the ball around from the tap and go, which resulted in a David Davison try converted by Hellier who was by far the best visiting player on the park.

TEAM:
Steventon, Ceillam, L. Batiste, M. Thomas, Skovronek, Ryan, Mercadal, Martin, Barnes, Nixon, Hellier, Jones, Gladstone, Davison, Sayer. Replacements: Ashplant, Holland, Webb.