WITHOUT kicking a ball and watching from the warmth of the JRFC clubhouse Beeches RFC won the Emeraude Lines JRA league yesterday afternoon.
They finished top because Wanderers RFC beat Beeches’ only title rivals, Guernsey 2nds RFC, 12-0 and although they both finish with 30 points, from 12 games played, Beeches have a better points difference.Not surprisingly Beeches’ captain Peter Stockley was delighted with Wanderers’ win after the game.
‘That’s the first major competition we’ve won in the three years I’ve been captain,’ he said, adding, ‘probably for much longer than that, when we always seemed to be propping up the league.’At times during the game I was living every moment.’Jersey 2nds’ captain, Jason Brouard, paid tribute to the Wanderers’ technical play in the first half - when all 12 points were scored and another two tries went begging - and said: ‘We missed tackles and dropped too many balls out wide,’ although in a final 20-minute bombardment of their line, Wanderers’ defence deserves special mention.It was that defence which Beeches’ captain, John Creavy, believes won them the match and kept the league title in Jersey - Jersey RFC 2nds won it last year - although he was full of praise for a Guernsey 2nds’ team that never gave in.Because their 1st XV also had a Hampshire Bowl fixture yesterday and took a squad of 21 players away with them, Guernsey’s team had to be supplemented by several veterans’ players.Even so, for ten minutes in the first half and for most of the second they had most possession.If their kicker, Carl Gardner, had converted two kickable penalties, the first after 15 minutes the second after 60 they could have made this game much, much closer.Similarly, if winger Mark Stone hadn’t dropped the ball in the 70th minute after Guernsey’s best three-quarter move of the match, when all he had to do was catch it and run over, the Wanderers’ win would not have been so decisive.As it was, the first try came when winger Steve Byrne broke free after five minutes before passing the ball to Guy Hinks whose bounced pass found Mick Mayo in support, and able to cross the line wide out to score.Creavy missed the conversion, but slotted home just 16 minutes later when Guy Hinks cut inside, and despite being stopped a yard short of the line, was driven over by his pack.The score was 12-0 - the final score - but already one try had gone begging when Mayo broke, passed to No 7 Heath Abbott (who overall was outstanding), only to see the pass somehow go loose with the line three yards away and with no Gguernseyman in sight.The worst miss, though, came on the stroke of half-time when another powerful Byrne run saw him run clear through flailing tackles to arrive two yards out from the line with a man on his right and only the full-back in front of him.Instead of passing, he opted to go it alone and was brought crashing down.A simple pass, and Wanderers would have been three scores out of sight.So, Guernsey 2nds were to press hard, down the pitch, for most of the second half and deserved a try at least for all of their efforts.They have promising players, including Rupert Le Ber, a scrum-half with a tremendous pass, whose sniping runs caused problems throughout the game, but Wanderers bottled him, and the rest of his side up, to such good effect that the visitors went home scoreless and empty-handed - unlike Peter Stockley and some very happy Beeches’ players.
Article posted on 1st March, 2004 - 12.00am
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