JERSEY won through to the Cimandis Muratti Vase final against Guernsey on 5 May with a convincing 7-0 semi-final victory away to Alderney at Mount Hale on Saturday.

The visitors, who eventually gave six players their first Muratti caps, recorded their biggest tournament win since a 10-0 success in 2000 and it was certainly a big day for the new boys as Mark Lucas and substitutes Barry Beatson and Marco Vieira all scored.

Lucas scored a peach for Jersey’s third shortly before half time while in time added on – as a result of two flares being lit on separate occasions by young inebriated home team supporters – Beatson and Vieira netted Jersey’s fifth and sixth goals.

Shortly before the end, Alderney’s Simon Benfield was shown a second yellow card and then a red to be removed from the technical area following comments made to the match officials after they failed to penalise Jersey’s Jack Cannon following a high challenge on an opponent.

Jersey manager Dave Kennedy last week said that he would accept an ‘ugly’ win if need be, but he need not have worried as Jersey played well on a good surface and took their chances well.

Kennedy said: ‘It’s been a good trip, the boys have played well and we’ve got to be very pleased with that. A large part of the job was done in the first half and we deservedly went in three-up as a result of playing well.’

‘The fact that we had the opportunity to play against Blackburn, Reading and Northern Ireland, I think that was the difference today as you could clearly see that they had played together before.’

Alderney coach Rick Flatress said: ‘We’re very disappointed with the result, we had high hopes this year of doing much better than we did but it went wrong for us because Jersey kept shooting!’

Jersey got off to a flyer with the wind at their backs and eight minutes in the recalled Mark Brown, who had an excellent game, sold a dummy to move between two players before firing home from 30 yards; his shot taking a wicked bounce to beat goalkeeper Paul Williams.

Jason Atkins and Kevin Gentle worked tirelessly in the home team’s defence before Chris Andrews made it 2-0 direct from a corner, just a minute after the hard-working Paul Aitken had a goal ruled out for offside.

Cannon and Lucas combined well on the left throughout and Lucas exchanged passes with Craig Leitch before firing home Jersey’s third from 25 yards despite Williams getting a hand to the ball only to push it on to the underside of a crossbar and into the goal eight minutes before the break.

Jersey’s defence, in which Stuart Andre and Scott Devlin were solid, kept Alderney at bay although James Vizard fired a shot into the side netting from their second corner minutes before the interval.

Alderney’s youngest side ever fell further behind on the hour when Chris Andrews was felled for a penalty kick and after a four-minute stoppage to extinguish a flare Leitch calmly tucked the ball away for Jersey’s fourth.

Leitch then weaved his way through a couple of challenges to be denied by substitute goalkeeper Jamie Leband but the ball ran to Beatson who made it 5-0 from close in.

Alderney tired in the closing stages and from substitute Jack Boyle’s cross, Beatson had a shot blocked leaving Vieira to volley home Jersey’s sixth.

Alderney again failed to clear their line shortly after leaving Russell Le Feuvre to capitalise with a crisp strike from 18 yards.

Six Jersey players won their first caps; Bird, Lucas and Aitken who started and substitutes Beatson, Boyle and Vieira.