I would hope that there is a huge crowd at St Peter tomorrow afternoon when Jersey Rugby Club play Portsmouth in their latest fixture in National III South East.

Why? Well, it isn’t solely because I like my rugby; it is more because the standard being set by the Ist XV is so good I doubt if it has ever been bettered or, in seasons to come, will conceivably be bettered again.

For the last two weeks chez Lake has been playing host to a 17-year-old German student who, before he arrived here, knew nothing about the game. However, he knows when he is watching something special in sport – any sport – which is why he can appreciate the flair and occasional brilliance of Ben Harvey’s team which has had opposition coaches positively drooling not so much with envy, but with real admiration for what 15 men can achieve on a patch of green.

In the past I’ve marvelled at golfers making the sport look so easy at La Moye and the Jersey Royal. I’ve seen netballers hit such giddy heights of excellence that you don’t want to go home once the game is over: you are so entranced you want it to go on and on.

The same is true, occasionally, of football games played at Springfield which is why I miss Iain Mackenzies’ under-21 internationals.

You don’t mind paying £5, £10, £15, £20 (or more) if you’re getting over-the-odds’ worth for the quality that’s on display in front of you.

And at times the sport is irrelevant. Tennis, squash, boxing, darts, snooker – if the standard is a mega-league above what you’re used to and if it sticks in your memory for years to come, then the cost is less important than the memories you’re left with.

So the point I am making is that only rarely are we privileged to enjoy true sporting prowess in Jersey but that is what the rugby club has produced, twice, in as many weeks, once at home and once away.

By my saying that I’ve probably given the Ist XV the kiss of death but mark my words, I can occasionally dream sport – but only memorable sport – of any persuasion.
My wife can vouch for that (ask her, for example, when I threw my arm across her in my sleep and shouted ‘goal’!) . . . but it has to be a GOOD goal, or a try or a basket . . . you get my drift.

The Island is privileged to have a JRFC side which has so far scored 314 points from only seven games played. As for the fuss that other clubs make about us being ‘professional’. Well, last weekend eight of the starting 15 were home grown. Others, like Matt Banahan, have outgrown ‘little old Jersey’ and are plying their wares abroad.

And, as coach Ben Harvey replied, when someone complained that another side he coached actually paid its players, and wasn’t that a shame – ‘the reason why they’re paid professionals is that they’re worth it. If they weren’t good enough to be paid, they’d be amateurs.’ (Ben was too polite to add in the ‘just like you’ put down which should have surely followed!)

My young German friend was introduced to rugby when he saw a thrilling Heineken Cup match on TV between Leicester Tigers and Ospreys. The match ended 32-32 and after that my friend was hooked.

‘Games aren’t always as exciting as this,’ I said. ‘Besides, both teams will be disappointed not to have won.’

Which is true; and which is why I am able to quote Ospreys’ director of rugby, Scott Johnson, who said: ‘A draw is like kissing your mother-in-law. You’re glad you’ve got one, but you don’t want to go through it again!’
It tickled me, that did . . .

Last week the JEP mentioned that, from henceforward, smoking on the sidelines at Les Quennevais netball matches will be banned for ‘health reasons’.

As a non-smoker now but as a former smoker who saved up enough Green Shield Stamps from Hallmark cigarettes to buy a carrycase to put all of my long playing records in (thereby showing my age) I’m not sure I thoroughly approve of an edict such as this.

Now I’m the first one to applaud the ban on smoking in restaurants, pubs and other closed-in public places. But outside, in the Great Outdoors? And how do you stop someone smoking next to a netball, hockey, football or rugby pitch, particularly if they say, when you politely ask them to refrain, ‘sorry mate. I’m not watching the netball. Just waiting for a friend?’

As I get older, balder and wider I’m conscious that I’m also unfit and ought to put more back into sport than I do.

I justify my inability to compete or to coach on the grounds that I don’t have time enough, through family commitments and because I report on sport, rather than doing it.

There isn’t enough time in the day to watch, write, play and coach so, I’d argue, something has to give . . . and besides, it’s too late now for me ever to play for England.
Not too late, however, for former Jersey Muratti captain Dave Brodie to manage the Island’s under-21 footballers in the Ambassadeur Bowl Muratti away to Guernsey next month.

He won’t be alone, as he will be joined by former Jersey managers Dave Kennedy and Kevin MacCarthy.

This time, however, neither Kennedy nor MacCarthy will be in control. Instead, 37-year-old Brodie will be, with the other two men happy to advise him and work with him, not over him.

I was – am – pleased for all three men’s commitment to the under-21 team. No ego trips; no ‘this is how I did it in my day’. Instead they are putting the under 21-side first, with one common intent. To win.

And I was also encouraged by what Dave Brodie said after being named manager of the Island side: ‘My playing days will end soon and I don’t want to just drift away like a lot of former players do. I love football and while I’m still enjoying it I want to be involved.’

What Brodie has said I believe every ex-player in all kinds of sports ought to be saying. What you take out as a younger man you ought to put back into your sport when you’re older . . . Ten out of ten, Dave Brodie. And I hope you, Kevin MacCarthy and Dave Kennedy produce a team that’s more than good enough to win.

My on-off love affair with Formula One is way up on the plus side again this week after Jenson Button finished fifth in Brazil, first in the world.

However, as likeable a champion as he undoubtedly is, I’m more pleased for his team’s back room boys than for Button. For this time last year team boss Ross Brawn didn’t have a team, a driver, enough sponsors to shake a stick at or, indeed, money enough to pay anything but cut-price wages. Instead he had total belief in his ability to create a car good enough to surprise the Ferraris of this world – the big boys.

And he did so, as his cars and drivers finished first and second in the opening Grand Prix at Melbourne, the first time a new team had accomplished that feat since Mercedes Benz in 1954.

By all accounts Brawn is a modest man, whose team knew that, to a man, they could be out of work within a couple of weeks if their cars and drivers hadn’t been up to scratch. But they worked at it and would, by all accounts, have worked for nothing in the belief that their car could be better than any other in F1.

I can’t imagine another team coming from virtually nowhere to blow all the others away like that in my lifetime but I’m glad it happened and that, for once, money was less important than self-belief.

Finally, a Government survey has shown that a third of pupils in UK schools no longer regularly play competitive sport.

Team games such as rugby and hockey are declining in popularity as schools lay on ‘fun’ sports such as juggling, trampolining, skateboarding and angling.

It’s a sign of the times, I suppose, and to a certain extent I can’t complain as the next generation do what generations have always done.

They create their own society. Reading as we know it will, for example, probably disappear in the future as generations to come download from the Internet and text and message each other in a language all their own. And tastes in music rarely remain the same from one generation to the next.

So is it inevitable that team sports will pay a similar price ? – I’d like to say ‘ask me again in 50 years time’. But I won’t be around by then.

So I won’t know if the equivalent of today’s TV will be showing Man United v Liverpool; or instead will be showing Joe Thunderbolt thrashing around in the biggest skateboarding arena in Europe . . .