For all but the final quarter Guernsey were very much in this game, but ultimately they paid dear for an off day and an unfortunate sin-binning of captain Jemma Crouse in the crucial late stages.

Naturally, coach Chris Griffiths was disappointed, as were the squad, but as he said afterwards he would have happily taken three wins from four had it been offered to him at the start of the season.

Canterbury came at the visitors in the first 5 minutes and Guernsey conceded 5 penalties in the first 4 minutes, thankfully for no loss of points. We then spent 15 to 20 minutes encamped in or around the Canterbury 22, and after many attempts to breach their line we were eventually awarded a penalty try after Fiona Ashworth was deemed to have been pulled back when chasing her own kick through. Crouse made the conversion. But that was as good as it got and the home side levelled before the break for a 7-7 half-time scoreline.

In the second half, Canterbury made substitutions in the front row and although Guernsey certainly never went backwards, the clear ascendancy they had in the first half was no longer quite there as Canterbury managed to gain more possession so they started to run some strong lines and were recycling the ball well. Ten minutes into the half they worked a try out wide having broken through a few tackles that perhaps should really have been made.

When Guernsey had possession they seemed to give it away far too easily, often through some uncharacteristic poor handling which to be fair was in part due to the line speed and aggression of the Canterbury defence.

When Guernsey were defending they remained guilty of giving away too many penalties and the continued Canterbury pressure told when they broke the line again and with some nifty handling down the line dotted down for their third.

Shortly after that they were working the ball down the backline and scored in the far right corner but only after a high tackle from a Guernsey player. This led to the sin binning (incorrectly) of Crouse who had been wrongly identified by the referee as the culprit.

Crouse had been injured in trying to save the try being scored in the corner and the 10 minutes off the pitch was probably a blessing in that sense, but down to 14 players Guernsey struggled to keep out a marauding Canterbury team who now had their tails well and truly up and could sense an impressive victory was on the cards.

They duly scored two tries in the 10 minutes that Guernsey were without the full compliment on the pitch and the final score ended 29-7.

Reflecting on the game, Griffiths said, ‘Our discipline let us down badly in areas of the game where giving away penalties could have easily been avoided and ultimately this let them back into the game. When we were going forward or had possession we just didn’t look after the ball well enough and we also started to fall off tackles in the second half which is something we have not been doing this season, so that was disappointing.'

‘There were some really good individual performances, notably form Ellie Whittles at No. 8 who made a lot of defensive tackles and Vicki Rang made four or five brilliant covering tackles at full back and the scrum for at least the first half was as good as I have seen it. We are still in a great position in the league in second place, and if you had asked me at the start of the season would I have been happy with three wins from four, especially with the three away games, I would have said yes. I am still very positive that with a couple of good performances in the next two matches we will get ourselves back on top again.’

Team:
1. Michaela Rabey
2. Sophie O'Connell
3. Heidi Mahy
4. Kristine Vavere
5. Rebecca Drury
6. Tanya Scholtz
7. Fiona Power
8. Ellie Whittles
9. Jemma Crouse (capt)
10. Fiona Ashworth
11. Aimee Gaudion
12. Hannah McLennan
13. Lauren Finch
14. Anneka Saunders
15. Vicki Rang

Replacements:
Andrea Harris, Aiga Vecmane, Janelly Le Maitre.