The Birmingham-based club visit St Peter tomorrow as one of just two Greene King IPA Championship clubs the Islanders have never beaten – the other being Bristol.
| P | W | D | L | BP | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bristol | 21 | 20 | 0 | 1 | 19 | 99 |
| Worcester | 21 | 19 | 0 | 2 | 20 | 96 |
| London Scottish | 21 | 12 | 2 | 7 | 12 | 64 |
| Rotherham | 21 | 12 | 1 | 8 | 8 | 57 |
| Nottingham | 21 | 11 | 0 | 10 | 8 | 52 |
| Yorkshire Carnegie | 21 | 9 | 1 | 11 | 12 | 50 |
| Cornish Pirates | 21 | 9 | 0 | 12 | 9 | 45 |
| Jersey | 21 | 7 | 2 | 12 | 11 | 43 |
| Doncaster | 21 | 7 | 1 | 13 | 9 | 39 |
| Bedford | 21 | 7 | 0 | 14 | 10 | 38 |
| Moseley | 21 | 5 | 1 | 15 | 9 | 31 |
| Plymouth Albion | 21 | 3 | 2 | 16 | 4 | 20 |
Despite his squad being hit hard by injury, head coach Harvey Biljon says his team are transfixed on removing the Moseley-shaped monkey from their backs. The South African also believes his team owe the fans a final flourish as thanks for their support this season.
‘To this point, Jersey has never beaten Moseley so we need to change that,’ he explained.
‘On top of that, the supporters have been with us all season and got behind us and I can name three or four games – Pirates, Nottingham, Worcester – where our supporters carried us through the game to the win. We owe them something back, we owe them a strong finish.’
He added: ‘We spoke about the importance of the second half of the season and those home games. We’ve won four out of five … if we win tomorrow, five out of six is pretty good stats at home and it begins to lay that foundation for where we want to go next season.’
In mid-March, with five league matches to play, Jersey’s players set themselves the target of securing 14 points from their remaining fixtures. Now, with one game outstanding, they are within four points of realising their goal.
While defeat tomorrow wouldn’t be a major set-back in terms of the entire season, Biljon says it would a disappointing way to end.
Forwards (1-8): Sam Lockwood, Martin Garcia-Veiga, Harry Williams, Nick Campbell, Dave Markham, Alex Rae (c), Ryan Hodson, Nick Haining.
Backs (9-15): Sami Fisilau, Jonny Bentley, Ed Dawson, Lewis Robling, Drew Locke, Tua Otto, Aaron Penberthy.
Replacements: Nacho Lancuba, Nick Selway, PK Kaho, Ryan Glynn, Dai Bishop, Tobias Hoskins, Jack Burroughs.
‘The players have set themselves a goal which we’ve been talking about for the last five or six weeks.
‘They will either attain their goal or go beyond it, or they’ll fail and that’s what it comes down to. All this build-up has happened so it’s important that we, as a group, follow through with our game plan against Moseley.
‘This game is different to most because this result will effect whether we realise our goal or not. The wrong result, and all that hard work means nothing because we’ve not got there.’
While a win for Jersey could lift them to seventh in the table, having struggled through large portions of the season, Moseley will finish 11th regardless of the outcome.
For the St Peter-faithful, it may be the last chance to wave goodbye to the likes of Harry Williams, Drew Locke and Ryan Hodson – although the latter is still required to pass a last-minute fitness test. Biljon’s provisional squad includes both Ed Dawson, who played at Bristol last Friday, and Jack Burroughs, who returns after a long layoff through injury.
The match kicks-off at 3 pm.
