WITH two minutes to go Jersey RFC, playing away from home, were easily holding the unbeaten league leaders, Guildford, 17-17, and had been dominant for most of the second half.

However, when centre Andy Whelan, in possession of the ball, was isolated with the pack still trying to recover from a ruck only seconds before, the referee decided that he was holding on.

He awarded a penalty 38 yards away from the Jersey line.

A few careless words by one of the Jersey players, and the kick was now just 28 yards away.

The Guildford stand-off took his time and, with the minimum of effort, eased the ball between the posts.

Having come back so strongly after going behind 12-0 in the first ten minutes, a game that Jersey looked to have saved with an impressive second half performance, was now lost.

Even so, as a reflective head coach, Dai Burton, said afterwards, there was still time enough to have salvaged a draw.

‘Even with two minutes to go we put them under pressure and we should have been awarded a penalty of our own, when their full-back was also isolated, and clung on to the ball.

‘Instead of that, we were penalised for trying to get the ball off him.

‘It was frustrating, but even though Guildford are unbeaten and are five points clear at the head of the table, for a large part of the game we were better than they were.

‘I’m looking forward to taking them on when they play here, in Jersey, in April.’ As usual, be it home or away, Jersey gave the opposition an easy five point lead from a catch and drive score in the opening two minutes.

Despite practising week in and week out to protect their line from a kick into the corner, followed by a line-out and drive for the line, they opted to defend rather than to attack the subsequent maul, and paid the price.

‘To their credit, Guildford scored from a well-practised move with the ball passing through several hands before they scored,’ said Burton.

‘Their kicker then added another two points with a well-taken kick from the touchline, so it was a seven-pointer.

‘With less than ten minutes of the game having been played, they then went further ahead after Gareth Jeffreys dropped on the ball but, without support, was robbed, and their No 10 put in a cross kick which, with an in-goal area of 20 metres allowed one of their flying wingers to run in to dive on the ball and to score.

So we were already 12-0 down with most of the game still to play.’ After that, quietly and effectively, Jersey dominated the line-outs, the rucks and the mauls; their only danger being when the Guildford No 10 put in some raking kicks behind the threes.

‘But after 20 minutes he had to go off, injured,’ Burton said, ‘and their replacement No 10 then played a running game, which suited us.

Jeffreys (at full-back) had a tremendous game, never letting any of their players through, while centre Andy Whelan was also at the heart of our defence with some terrific hits.’ So, Jersey deserved their first try which came from another catch and drive.

With eight minutes to the break Roger Quirk caught the ball in the line-out and offered it to back-row forward Ian Henderson who drove over.

‘Simple power play; but effective,’ said Burton.

And, despite both teams having players sin-binned (Jersey captain Steve O’Brien was ‘rested’ for ten minutes in the second half for coming in to a ruck from the side), the Island XV were easily the better team in the second half.

‘The longer the game went on, the more I realised we were fitter than they were,’ said Burton.

‘They were walking to the line-outs and rucks.

We were also stealing their ball and twice won the ball against the head.’ And, only minutes into the second half, they were level.

A fluid three-quarter movement saw winger Mark White beat his man before he was half-tackled as he flipped the ball up to scrum-half Paul Nayar who scored.

Darren Toudic, now on for Jamie Allan, converted.

Jersey then went into the lead after Guildford were awarded a scrum but were pushed back, leaving their former captain and scrum-half under pressure.

A fumbled pass to his stand-off was turned over by Richie Griffiths and, from 20 yards out, Nayar seized on the ball to score his second try of the game.

After losing 12-0, Jersey were now 17-12 in front.

‘Then, while Steve was in the sin-bin, they won decent ball on the left and their hooker stole in from 15 yards out to make it 17-17,’ said Burton.

‘But we were in the ascendancy, and we actually lost the game when we were in control; when we had the ball it was passed to Andy (Whelan) instead of being kicked clear.

‘But this was a great display.

The back row, and Jeffreys, were magnificent.

Unlike our game against Lewes when some of the players weren’t really there, everyone turned out on the day.

We’re comfortable in this division and, despite losing, if we carry on playing like this we have nothing to fear.’ Team: Marcus Nobes (Peter O’Connor), Josh Chamier, Jim Brimelow, Roger Quirk, Ian Henderson, Jon Allo, Richie Griffiths, Steve O’Brien, Paul Nayar, Jamie Allan (Darren Toudic), Mark White, Andy Whelan, Steve Mee (Harry Bonn), James Milner, Gareth Jeffreys.