ALTHOUGH only 21 points were scored in this game, either team could have doubled that amount and afterwards London Irish captain Mark Pettit said he was disappointed with his side’s indiscipline and that they should have been more than five points to the good by half-time.
It was a sentiment shared by Jersey’s coach Dai Burton, who said: ‘They were a livewire side and turned us over in the first half two or three times.’In the second-half I moved Richie Griffiths to stand-off and brought Andy Whelan into the threes, to stamp some authority on the game.
I couldn’t see any pattern emerging in the first half despite the work we’ve put in during training, so both Richie and Andy were told to straighten up play, make holes, and pass the ball, which they did.’It was a simple but brutal tactic for, in the second half, despite being five and then eight points down, Jersey never looked like losing.With John Allo coming into a reorganised pack after Paul Woodcock went off injured, and with a Jersey three-quarter line-up that might have lacked pace, but was terrific in defence, the Irish only looked liked scoring when the referee gave penalties in their favour.Yet for all of Jersey’s promise, they were decidedly subdued in the first half, taking time to crank themselves into gear by which time the opposition had taken the lead following winger Hywel Gammage’s spurt for the line after quick ball from the pack and a blind side grubber kick in the 15th minute.Full-back Pat Stone missed the conversion, but the rest of the half was a comedy of errors.
Both sides spilled too much ball, with the Irish having most chances in an open game which saw them adventurous enough to run penalties from their own 22 and only fail to score thanks to big hits by hooker Josh Chamier and Richie Griffiths in open play.Around half-times changes were made and, by now, a 400-strong Saturday afternoon crowd had turned up at St Peter to witness a Jersey revival after Irish full-back Stone put his side into a 8-0 lead in the 42nd minute following yet another unwarranted Jersey penalty.At times the Island side couldn’t quite match the Irish in the line-outs, but the longer the game went on, the more they asserted themselves in all phases of play.So, whenever Jersey could pass and hold onto the ball for more than two or three minutes at a time, they looked like scoring.In the 47th minute they did just that, when the ball was recycled left, right, and left again with huge young flanker Matt Banahan on the end of the final pass to crash over.Fly-half Phil Walker missed the conversion, but after Burton’s policy of big hits from the threes with Walker off and Whelan on, for the next 30 minutes the game consisted of the pack winning the ball and Jersey creating havoc by simply crashing over the gain line.With 15 minutes remaining, again after a period of Jersey pressure, Banahan took the ball cleanly in a line-out, fed it back to his pack and, despite a mass of bodies in front of him, No 8 Ian Henderson found about a yard of green and touched down.Jersey deserved more points, although their only other score was to be a Mark White penalty, wide out on the left with barely ten minutes remaining.There were some other individual touches of flair before referee Richard Showan blew the final whistle, including two nicely-judged kicks from scrum-half Dave Miles, a 30-metre Gareth Jeffreys run and the sight of Andy Whelan and Marcus Nobes taking it in turn to run over a few of the opposition, at pace.However, at the end of the match it was a question of a patchy game won, without much being learnt by either coach other than that this was a sunny day out at St Peter.Still, there are more home games to come than games away.’At the end of the game Jersey were stronger in the forwards,’ said Pettit.’But then we’ve lost too many of our own players, who’ve retired.
The oldest player in the scrum is 25.
The referee also made some very odd decisions.
‘But next year we’ll be back.
We’ll be up for it.’Burton was also alarmed at times by the referee’s decisions, for the longer the game went on the more he seemed to misapply the offside rule.However, Burton was pleased by the result, if not by his side’s performance.’The Irish spoilt well and full credit to them for running the ball through their threes in the first half,’ he said.’In turn we played too much as individuals.
That’s one of the reasons why I made changes.
You can’t afford to do that at this level.’Teams: Jersey: Marcus Nobes, Josh Chamier, Jon Brennan, Paul Woodcock (John Allo), Danny McAlister, Matt Banahan, Steve O’Brien, Dave Miles, Phil Walker (Andy Whelan), Gareth Jeffreys, Richie Griffiths, Dave Carswell, Jim Milner, Mark White.London Irish: Pat Stone, Hywel Gamage, Jon Meads, Martin Johnstone, Cairon Little, Sean Walsh, Mark Pettit, Mike McGloughlin, Tom Rees, Terry Leonard, Gerald Kelliher, Solomone Momoivalu, Taione Muuwale, Cameron Cummings, Mike Kingston.
Article posted on 16th February, 2004 - 12.00am
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