After seeing young Glen Walters hold his nerve and with one mighty kick clinch Guernsey a vitally important 8-6 win at Hertford, coach Jordan Reynolds praised the spirit of his team on a mucky and cold day away.

‘It was great to see us fight right up to the end and at least give ourselves the chance to win it,’ he said.

After his criticism of the Gravesend performance, the director of rugby, was happy to slap on the praise after what may be a crucial win come the spring.

‘It was a totally different attitude this time,’ he said.

Consquently, the win, combined with Tring losing at Westcliff, the boys flew home off the bottom of National 3 London & SE and within two points of CS Rugby 1863.

Walters's last gasp kick only just crept over the bar and it is highly doubtful whether he would have been able to snatch the points had the home side accepted the referee's decision when the visitors forced the penalty in stoppage time.

But Hertford moaned about the decision and with the referee marching the ball 10m further up the pitch as a result, Walters was grateful to be closer to the posts, vitally as it turns out.

In difficult muddy conditions Guernsey got the perfect start when Dave Davison dived over in our first attack of the game after five minutes.

We still led 5-0 at the interval, but Hereford kicked two penalties after half-time and despite our courageous efforts that looked like being enough until Walters' dramatic late intervention.

‘A typical bloody game of English rugby’ were the words from the chattering but grinning teeth of the Kiwi born Guernsey team manager Megan Jones afterwards.

And, to be fair, she had a point.

On arriving at the Hertford ground the only person who seemed excited to see the snow pouring down was Guernsey’s Fijian Simi Sawene having not previously seen the white stuff before. His realisation, as was of both teams during their warm up before the game, was that the now blizzard conditions were going to play a major factor on how the game was going to pan out.

Gradually the bitterly cold wind and the driving snow, now turning to rain, reduced the covered ground to slush. Guernsey start the game of the better team, driving mauls forced the team into the Hertford 22.

From a lineout catch and drive the ball found its way out to David Davidson who had a free run in to score a try in the corner.

Glen Walters’ conversion attempt was completely blown of course by the wind.

As the both teams ventured into each other halves and battled the elements as well as the opposition, defences and poor ball retention due to frozen hands nullified any chance to score any further points before half-time.

With Hertford now having the wind and slope their game plan failed to put pressure on the Guernsey defence.

But their box kicks were well dealt with by the Guernsey back three of Davidson, Hema and Batiste. Meanwhile, Hertford’s No. 8 regular pick up and runs from the back of their scrum was now being dealt with well by the Guernsey back three of Barton, Merrien and Thomas.

Guernsey were dealing better with the conditions and continued with 10 man rugby of the old fashioned “up the Jumper” kind.

Each pack member was driven on by the ever present Malcolm Barnes whose bandaged head seemed to be popping up everywhere as usual.

Only when Guernsey tried to move the ball out wide did any attack break down.

Hertford, though, were to kick two penalties to take a 6-5 lead with a few minutes to go.

But we weren’t giving up on this one.

From the kick off Guernsey put pressure on Hertford and driving up the slope and against the elements they forced Hertford in to giving away a sloppy penalty.

A 30 metre penalty in front of the posts on most days would be kickable to most players, but with the wind howling in his face Glen Walters could and would have been forgiven by his team mates had he missed.

His flat kick twisted and turn in the air like a tossed balloon only for the realisation that it had actually gone over when the linesmen lifted up their flags to the joy of the Guernsey team.