JERSEY RFC head coach Myles Landick stated they will “make no excuses” after their promotion hopes were left in tatters following a gruelling 41-36 defeat to Old Alleynians on Saturday.
Despite scoring six tries in a tantalising end-to-end clash in South London, the St Peter’s-based side produced an error-ridden display and suffered their first away defeat of the season.
The loss ends a run of seven victories and means that Jersey RFC’s margin behind Regional 1 South Central league leaders London Welsh has grown to eight points.
A downcast Landick told JEP: “We’re obviously feeling disappointment. We said to each other at the end that they didn’t win the game, we lost it. We weren’t accurate at times, and lacked some of our detail that we worked on during the week.
“But we did well to come back into the game and, overall, I’m really proud of the guys, despite the result.
“At half-time we said we needed to focus on our work rate, get back into the game and we did, but a couple of little inaccuracies in our 22-metre area when we thought we could go for the win, and one little mind slip when they got away from us at the breakdown to score, was the difference.
“We have to give credit to Old Alleynians, their want, their desire, was brilliant and we were a bit off.
“You have to turn up to these places otherwise you’re going to lose, and that’s precisely what happened.
Jersey made seven forced changes to the side that beat Horsham in Sussex 26-7 the week before, with a mix of injuries and players unavailable due to the Old Alleynians fixture being played on a reserve weekend after being postponed in November.
It meant that the usual slick operation at set-pieces was missing and the red shirts suffered numerous mistakes in the loose, which the Dulwich-based home side capitalised on.
Jersey’s player availability was worsened by prop Huw Owen pulling out injured on Thursday night and back-rower Jerry Sexton coming down with a stomach bug on Friday.
It led to George Willmott moving to No.8 and teenager Charlie Best earning his debut at inside-centre.
Landick said: “We could have come out and said we had 15 players unavailable for this weekend, but we’re a squad and every player on that pitch was capable of getting a win.
“We came very close, but we just didn’t cross the line. We had 18-year-old Charlie Best making his debut, young Billy Mullins coming on, Jake Bates, who’s normally a prop, throwing in at hooker, and they all deserve credit.
“It was just little inaccuracies that cost us. We’ve earned two promotions, we wanted more competitive games, and we’ve flown away to play a tough side on a fairly boggy surface and lost. We need to look at the positive, we’ve still come away with two league points.
“I’ve said all season we’re taking it game by game. A lot of people have been asking about our London Welsh game next month, but for the time being we need to look at the footage, see what we can work on and come out all guns blazing against Wimbledon next.”
Double try scorer George Willmott believed it was the “toughest game” the Island side have had all season.
The No.8 said: “We had some players unavailable and a few pull out late but we can’t make excuses. We have a big squad with plenty of young lads who played well and it was our own fault that we didn’t get the win.
“We suffered two errors which gave OAs tries in the first-half, and we let ourselves down to give away some easy tries.
“It was such a fight in the second-half to even try and come back. We were nearly there but we slipped up again and they got a crucial late try.
“It was tough conditions, the pitch was a bit of a mud bath and on a 90-degree angle, which was tough, but it’s all just excuses. They played to the conditions really well, we didn’t and we need to learn from it to come back stronger.”
While Old Alleynians sit seventh in the league and 38 points behind Jersey, the historic club are on a similar upward trajectory to Jersey, having won back-to-back promotions over the last two seasons. They also claimed the Papa Johns Men’s Counties One Community Cup in May 2023.
OAs captain Gill Crouch said: “I’m on cloud nine, it was brilliant. We were all up for it and very excited to play Jersey and show what we can do.
“We’ve had two really successful years, and coming up to Tier 5 has been a lot tougher, but really enjoyable and very competitive.
“We’ve been looking to get a big scalp. We had a lot of changes for this game against Jersey due to it being on a spare weekend, but everyone stepped up and it’s a brilliant result in our season.
“The support we received was incredible, it lifted everyone and Jersey were unbelievable. Jersey are so strong, they wouldn’t go away, kept coming back at us and I’m really proud that we stuck at it as it’s such a huge result for us.”
