DESPITE the scoreline, a 21-6 win for the Jersey Rugby Club against Hayward’s Heath on Saturday was not the performance that coach Ben Harvey wanted.

Jersey might have won but, in his eyes, they won badly. ‘After beating them by over 40 points early on in the season I was always worried by how we’d play at St Peter,’ he said.

‘In the second half we fell away and we never played to the game-plan we’d worked on in the build-up to Saturday’s game. The lads themselves were disappointed. What I can take as positive is the impact made from the players we called in from the bench.’

Jersey won because they had match-breakers in the likes of Sam Tuia, who scored the most exquisite of tries, while captain ‘V’ Vaioleti was arguably the man of the match for the way he stole the ball from the opposition and, with No 8 Hendry Rheeders, mangled the Hayward’s Heath back row, time after time. In front of a crowd of 700 the game only occasionally reached the heights of a Jersey side which is capable of playing rugby at an even higher level than London I.

• Picture: Sam Tuia blasts through the Hayward’s Heath defence to score Jersey’s second try on Saturday afternoon. Picture by David Ferguson (00610795)