JERSEY RFC continued where they left off last season, by winning their first game in a new Division, London South West II, 30-26 away to Old Whitgiftian RFC.

The win means that coach Dai Burton has seen his Jersey team go 18 months unbeaten in the league and, on the evidence of this game, there are more victories yet to come.

It was not, however, all plain sailing.

‘The game started late because the referee went to the wrong pitch, we had to drop one of our players because he wasn’t registered and we had no idea what to expect when we started the game against a team who finished third in the table last year,’ said Burton.

‘They had a No 8 player who was probably their man of the match, who didn’t miss one kick at goal; they scored a try from an obvious forward pass.

But the pitch was one of the best I’ve seen – lush grass that internationals would be happy to play on.

John Sauvage (JRFC’s groundsman) would have been proud of it.

‘After the first 25 minutes, I was happy with the way we were playing.

During that time they were playing ten-man rugby and yet we kept knocking them back.

I expected them to change their style of play, but they didn’t.

And even when we went behind I wasn’t worried, because we kept making chances and overlaps.

‘Gareth Jeffreys scored a hat-trick before half-time and the game itself was played in a really good spirit.’ In other words Burton had, on the whole, enjoyed his day trip to London.

He obviously enjoyed the four tries, too, the first which came almost from the start, when the ball was moved from a maul to Jeffreys, the fastest player on the pitch, who ran 60 yards before touching down.

Eight minutes later the hosts’ No 8 kicked a penalty to make it 8-3, before Dave Carswell, on the wing, put a grubber kick through which Jeffreys collected and raced through for a converted try to make it 12-3.

More Whitgiftian pressure and offside in the loose and another penalty made it 12-6, before the home side went into the lead following a break in the threes, with the centre taking a neat pass to score in the corner for another converted try.

Jersey were now down, 13-12, but still Burton was pleased with the way his side were playing.

‘I wasn’t worried at the time,’ he said, ‘because we were creating scoring opportunities, even if we weren’t taking them.

‘Even when they scored another penalty to make it 16-12 I knew we could score again, which we did when Gareth got his hat-trick just before half-time, following a chip ahead.’ Darren Toudic’s conversion made it 17-16 at half-time before the game see-sawed in the middle of the park for most of the next 20 minutes, with neither side scoring.

However, by handling on the ground, Jersey gave another penalty away after that, which was duly slotted over, so with 20 minutes left Jersey were behind again, 19-17.

Another Toudic penalty with less than a quarter of the game to go reversed this to 20-19 before Josh Chamier scored his first try of the season.

Steve O’Brien led the charge from his own half; Old Whitgiftians were penalised as they ran back to try to ease the pressure and Mark White, on for Simon Nevitt, tapped quick ball to eventually release Chamier who still had a man to beat as he went over the line from five yards out.

‘Darren then kicked another penalty, to make it 30-19,’ added Burton; ‘and then with three minutes remaining they scored a converted try from one of the most blatant forward passes, by the fly-half, you are ever likely to see.

So the final score of 30-26 probably flatters them.

‘But they were a good team, well organised and quick to the breakdown, although in the first half at least I think we were fitter than they were.

Steve O’Brien and Ross Allan marshalled the defence in the threes and, against a team which had finished so high up the league last year, this was a good game to win.’ On the evidence of this first match and first win of the season, Jersey will consolidate themselves in this higher division although at some stage injuries will come into the equation.

Simon Nevitt, for one, hobbled off with a hamstring injury on Saturday and will be out for some time to come.

Jersey squad: Marcus Nobes, Josh Chamier, Huw Thomas, Peter O’Connor, John Larose, Mark Peters, Roger Quirk, Ian Henderson, Richie Griffiths, Will Grant, Paul Nayar, Darren Toudic, Simon Nevitt, Ross Allan, Steve O’Brien, Dave Carswell, Jon Swift, Gareth Jeffreys, Steve Mee.