JERSEY RFC’s player-coach Scott van Breda’s wide smile after a testing 26-7 win over Horsham on Saturday stated more than a thousand words as the islanders secured their seventh win in a row.
Stalwart hooker Jack Macfarlane scored a brace of tries and debutant winger Rory Drummond also crossed the whitewash, with Van Breda kicking over two conversions alongside a penalty try at a blisteringly cold Hammerpond Road ground in Sussex.
In typical Jersey RFC fashion, the bonus-point away win had to be done the hard way, with injuries being suffered to both talisman Aaron Penberthy, and replacement PJ Dodge in the first-half.
The win continues Myles Landick’s side’s unbeaten form on the road this season, and keeps the Caesareans second-top in Regional 1 South Central, just five points behind league leaders London Welsh.
Playmaker Van Breda spoke of his relief after the final whistle, and told the JEP: “It was a really tricky game, it felt that after having a good result against them earlier in the season and watching some clips of them, you could tell Horsham were up for it and came out firing.
“They put it to us, so we had to dig quite deep, and it was another game that felt like it’s been the theme of our season. We had some tricky issues like Aaron [Penberthy] being injured after five minutes, which meant we had to change the back line around, bringing George Willmott into the backs from No.8.
“Then the flanker we brought on, Dodge, got injured after 30 minutes, so we had to rearrange things again, bring another prop on, move Jack Macfarlane to flanker, and bring another back on the field later on.
“At half-time we brought Billy Mullins on for Joe Ridgway and George went back to No.8.
“I would attack at 12, defend at 10, Mark Boarer would attack at 10, and Rory covered at fullback, so it was a lot of shuffling on different plays which made for an interesting game.
“For each phase it was very much a case of telling each other what to do, work play by play, and get into some kind of general shape.
“We struggled to get continuity, but then with so many chopping and changing, just to stick at our main task and get the main job done was nice and I’m really pleased.”
The ex-Premiership and Worcester Warriors fullback feels that Horsham threw the kitchen sink at the islanders, and despite the home-side being 11th in the tier five table, they had to be at their best.
Van Breda continued: “We had two debuts, one on the bench, one on the wing, both they both went really nicely.
“Again there was lots of adversity but we stuck in there, our defence was outstanding – and that alongside the dominance of our set piece was critical in getting the win.
“We’ve been working really hard on our defence so it was pleasing to see it in good form, and then to score some nice tries as well to get the five points was fantastic and is ultimately what we came to get.
“It was just a good hard game, they brought it to us, we got stuck in, dug deep, and stayed calm when we would have lost our heads earlier on in the season.
“We were able to bounce back from mistakes, like lineouts not going our way as well as the early injuries, and we stuck to our tasks, so to get the job done in the manner we did is super pleasing.”
The 32-year-old admitted he was worried whether the tries would come, with the game being nil-nil until the final minute before Macfarlane’s first right on the whistle gave Jersey RFC a 7-nil half-time lead.
He added: “It was a day where mental strength was as key as physical strength.
“We were a little frustrated as we couldn’t get over the line, but we stayed quite calm and composed as a team.
“At other times you might get people getting upset with each other, but we kept our composure and just kept knocking away, trusting that we would get the job done, and then we had that nice patch just before and just after half-time where we scored three tries.
“It was very much a game where we would get into the right position, and then the maul would collapse or there was a 50/50 decision we didn’t get. We didn’t get the calls in the first-half, but did in the second.
“Horsham said afterwards they had a lot to play for after we got stuck into them at home earlier in the season, and they showed their quality so it was a tricky day at the office, and not plain sailing that’s for sure.”
