FOR the sake of the last three minutes out of 80 and a lucky bounce of the ball, Jersey RFC lost Saturday’s London I game away to Old Albanians 25-20.

The defeat means that they are now mid-table, tied on six points with another four teams, while coach Ben Harvey was rightly frustrated afterwards that ultimately the better team lost. ‘For long periods we dominated,’ he said. ‘We were in control and in the last 15 minutes they never looked like scoring but then they turned the ball over, kicked ahead, and just when the ball could have bounced up anywhere, it fell into the hands of the stand-off. He drew the full-back then passed to his winger, who glided over beneath the posts. For the amount of possession we had and for the total commitment by our team, I’m devastated. On another occasion the luck would have been with us, not them. But not this time.’

And, for the second time in the last three weeks, the opposition coach sympathised with Harvey.
‘To be quite honest, we didn’t deserve to win,’ said coach Bruce Millar afterwards; while club captain Nick Tubby said: ‘it must have been awesome to watch and the nerves even got to our coach (Millar), who wouldn’t go for a few beers with the lads afterwards because he was so wound up by the way they’d played. It was so close and it really did go down to the wire. It was a game that could have gone either way.’

Pictured: Jersey’s John Brennan wrestles for possession with teammates Kern Yates (left), Ashley Maggs and Ian Henderson about to lend a hand during Saturday’s match