THE KRISTINA VAVERE led away side kicked off against Canterbury in their first league away game of the season and immediately piled the pressure on the home opposition forcing them backwards with some great tackling that led to a turnover and Guernsey unfortunately squandered a very early chance to score a try when they knocked on close to the line.

The resultant scrum was very even as it was to be all game, but with pressure squeezed on Canterbury again they threw the ball over their own line and appeared to put downwards pressure on the ball that should have resulted in a 5m scrum to Guernsey but the ref didn't spot it and they some how kicked downfield to relieve the early pressure.

These two opportunities early on were very promising for Guernsey but despite great line speed from Guernsey in defence and really hard tackling it was Canterbury who scored first as they managed to get the ball out wide around the 20minute mark. Guernsey found it hard to get possession of the ball after that but continued to keep a very large set of forwards at bay for long periods of play.

Canterbury used their big No. 12 a lot and eventually used as a decoy runner she created a gap for her centre colleague who scored from 20 yards out to make it 12- 0.

Guernsey kept pushing hard and eventually found some reward but only after a certain try had not been given a minute or two previously. After good work from the forwards and some more ferocious tackling forced Canterbury backwards the ball eventually went wide and was scored near the posts.

That was half time, and the second half was really end to end stuff.

Canterbury were using runners off the base of rucks really well and kept trying to bash through the Guernsey defence time and again, and on the odd occasion they succeeded leading to two more tries in the first half of the second half.

These were not unanswered tries though as Guernsey struck back with a great try from Chelsie Blondel coming into the line at fullback after a great driving maul up the middle of the pitch from the Guernsey pack.

The scoreline stood at 24-10 to Canterbury for quite a while until Guernsey hit back through prop Heidi Mahy who charged over the line from 10 metres out to make the score 24-15.

Canterbury struck next to extend their lead to 31-15, but Guernsey were still trying to get back into the game with 5 minutes remaining and a great break from fly half Jemma Crouse from around the half way line and a great dash for the line to score under the posts. She converted her own try to make it 31-22. Guernsey then pushed on again looking for another converted try that would have left just a penalty kick for the win, but there was to be a sucker punch from Canterbury with only a minute left on the clock.

Their fly half kicked for the first time in the game and caught the Guernsey defence flat footed and a very fortuitous bounce of the ball into the on rushing centre allowed them to score close enough to the posts to allow them to convert and deny Guernsey the losing bonus point by a single point.