Jersey’s under-18s knuckle down to the task away to Pulborough

n Royals RFC and visitors Sidcup after their latest Challenge Series match at Grainville last Saturday morning Picture: RON FELTON (16892753)

n Royals’ John James Le Feuvre storms towards the Sidcup line, despite the attentions of Richard Roddis, in the first half of their latest Challenge Series match at Grainville last Saturday morning Picture: RON FELTON (16892755)

Royals’ try-festJERSEY ROYALS played a full-part in a real try-fest when they scored five against visiting Sid-cup RFC in the latest of their Challenge Series matches at Grainville last Saturday.

Although they went down to a Sidcup Select side that had a powerful pack – and an electric winger in Steve Amura, who helped himself to four of the visitors’ eight tries – Royals did look likely winners for a good deal of the match which was played in bright sunshine on an ex-cellent surface.

Indeed, the Royals led 26-7 at half-time but made no apologies for numerous changes to their side which made continuity that much tougher … they are proud of their status as a community rugby club which gives playing time to as many of their large squad as they can.

That does not, however, make them uncompet-itive and their club spirit is certainly shining brightly through – something that is appreciated from the sidelines.

With the visitors having a far stronger, heavier

pack, it was no wonder that Royals chose a more expansive approach to the game – and running from distance paid huge dividends, especially in the first half. That said, it was their first foray into Sidcup’s 22 after six minutes that gave them their opening score, with powerful centre Justin Hewgill escap-ing from a ruck to score by the posts.

Warwick Palmer, who had a splendid day off the tee, added the extra two points.

Royals stretched their lead shortly after a Palmer penalty struck a post and bounced to safety, with winger Neil Walker’s pacy run bringing a score in the left -hand corner, fol-lowing line-out success on the right.

Amura served notice of his threat with Sidcup’s opening score, forcing himself over the line following a lineout on the right.

Royals’ star performer on the day, No 8/cen-tre John James Le Feuvre broke from inside his own half on the right, running diagonally to the left and around the Sidcup cover to

score. Palmer’s conversion made it 21-7, but the score kept moving in the Royals favour with Le Feu-vre again breaking through the centre to score by the posts.

The tide turned in a big way after the break, with Sidcup reg-ular scorers through Amura, Phil Evans and Richard Roddis. Royals did, however, show sever-al promising attacks before they added their fifth try, an excellent score from Rob Scott on the left, following a Le Feuvre surge into the visitors’ 22.

A thoroughly enjoyable after-noon, the teams posed for a pic-ture together before heading off for some aprés rugby in the Roy-als’ clubhouse at Grainville.

The Blues will always make welcome any prospective players and they train at Grainville on Wednesday evenings from 6.30, starting up again from 4 January. Put it in your calendar!

nRugby Challenge Series: Royals RFC 33, Sidcup RFC 50

Reds Colts sitting just three points off top

n Jersey Colts skipper Marc Davies takes on the Pulborough pack Picture: WARWICKPICS.COM

Pulborough 8 Jsy Reds Colts 11JERSEY REDS U18s edged out hosts Pulborough to go joint fourth with them in the Sussex Colts Premier last weekend – just three points off top spot.

Jersey expected it to be tough and so it was, with Pulborough making it an exceedingly hard-earned victory. The hosts dominat-ed the early stages, with Jersey pinned in their 22 by a side building pressure off a series of errors.

The pack battle was more

evenly matched with Jer-sey’s technical nous and experience giving them a slight edge, vital when they went a man down for ten minutes after a late tacke resulted in a yellow card.

Jersey eventually stead-ied and enjoyed a spell of possession and dominance during which they broke the deadlock – a Joe Til-stone penalty from a diffi-cult angle giving them the lead on the half hour. Pul-borough, however, came back and managed to lead

5-3 after an unconverted try just before the break.

Jersey’s lead coach Dave McCormack got his side refocused for the second period, in which they be-gan to muscle out Pulbor-ough, whose discipline started to falter.

Jersey were now taking advantage of home errors and, from one such situa-tion, the ball was fed out to Dan De Miguel who, head-down, burst through tack-le after tackle, to bulldoze his way to touch down in the corner. The conversion missed, Jersey now led 8-5.

Back came Pulborough and Jersey were forced to defend resolutely to a man. The pressure did yield a penalty, however, and Pul-borough made it 8-8 with ten minutes remaining.

Jersey won the day with a wonderful spell of pres-sure which was rewarded

nRugby: Sussex Colts Premier

SATURDAY 10 DECEMBER 2016 JERSEY EVENING POST 65

SPORT

Royals RFC (sponsored by Do-minion and Baker and Partners): Billy Bond, James Baudains, Cam-eron Spencer, Cameron Quérée, Tom Cockerham, Nick Hudson, Dan Baker, John James Le Feuvre, Howi Tharme, Warwick Palmer, Neil Walk-er, Justin Hewgill, John Geary, Rob Scott, Frankie Wood, Rory Steel, Brad Morgan, Guy Holvey-Clark, Craig Goodchild, Dan Gallichan.

with a penalty, duly con-verted by Tilstone. The Colts held onto their 11-8 lead up to the final whistle – a triumph of team spirit, resolve and ‘bloody-mind-edness’.

This group, whose only defeat was a narrow one away to league leaders Horsham, is growing with

each game and becoming a real force in Sussex, despite the lack of any home fixtures.

No rest for the young-sters who are in Sussex again tomorrow, playing second-placed Worthing.

Jersey Reds Colts (spon-sored by Saltgate): Marc Davies, Fraser George, Ewan

Davies, Cameron Campbell, Ed Jones, Alex Hill, Nathan Thomas, Daniel Franco, Dom Henstridge, Mark Boarer, Jamie Cook, Tom Coutanche, Joe Tilstone, Will Le Heuzé, Finlay Lang, Ben Church, Dan De Miguel, Will Flemmer, Myles Holmes. Coaches: Dave McCormick, Colin White. Manager: Alan Williamson.

Sussex Colts Premier

Clubs................................ Home Away Combined ................................ Team P W D L W D L W D L F A Diff Pts AdjHorsham .......................... 4 2 0 0 2 0 0 4 0 0 104 34 70 17 1Worthing ......................... 5 2 0 0 1 0 2 3 0 2 144 42 102 16 4Chichester ....................... 4 2 1 0 1 0 0 3 1 0 109 34 75 16 2Pulborough ...................... 5 2 0 2 1 0 0 3 0 2 109 47 62 14 2Jersey ............................ 4 0 0 0 3 0 1 3 0 1 113 68 45 14 2Brighton ........................... 4 2 0 0 0 1 1 2 1 1 117 60 57 13 3Heathfield & Waldron ..... 5 1 0 3 0 0 1 1 0 4 84 147 -63 8 4Guernsey ......................... 4 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 4 15 117 -102 0 0Hastings & Bexhill........... 5 0 0 3 0 0 2 0 0 5 20 266 -246 0 0