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STRONG SIDE FOR ‘TJs’ TEST

STRONG SIDE FOR ‘TJs’ TEST

Katie Daunt2 Mar 2017 - 20:33
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THEY are the champions-elect, but Raiders travel to Tonbridge Juddians on Saturday confident of causing an upset.

‘TJs’ gave Raiders a walloping at home last November when Jordan Reynolds’ men were in the midst of their own bad patch of the campaign, but things have changed around markedly for the islanders since then and we travel with a strong squad.
Although without prop Layton Batiste, who has a foot injury, French back-rower Romain Mercadal and Malcolm Barnes, who are both away, Raiders can recall the always dangerous Luke Sayer and the first-choice centre partnership of Ned Brown and Luke Jones, who have been missing of late.

TJs have lost just one in 20 National Three London & South-East games, with their only loss back in round two in September against Westcombe Park.
But Reynolds does not see them in any way invincible and believes they can end that 18-game winning streak in conditions which are expected to be wet.

Cameron Craine also comes back into the starting XV with Sam Steventon, surely a strong player of the year candidate, shuffling along to the 3 shirt vacated by Layton.
Matt Thomas comes back in at No. 8, with the versatile Dale Martin moving back to the back row from his stint on the wing.
As for the back-line, even without the still mercurial Barnes it is possibly the strongest set of backs all season.

Kick off at 2:30pm.

Guernsey Raiders team
Cameron Craine, Tom Ceillam, Sam Steventon, Lewis Hillier, Nick Merrien, Dan Hill, Dale Martin, Matt Thomas, Adam Nixon, Owen Thomas, Luke Sayer, Ned Brown, Luke Jones, Sam Whitehead, Ken Hellier.
Replacements: Luke Skovronek, Dave Davison, Callum Gladstone

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