It turned out to be an eventful National Two East curtain-raiser at Footes Lane with the home side playing the best part of 50 minutes down to 14 men after Tom Ceillam was shown a red card and then they had to come from behind in the second half to claim the victory over Worthing in the battle of the Raiders.

That they did so, and controlled the game from virtually the moment they fell behind in the first minute of the second half until the final whistle, giving Guernsey director of rugby Jordan Reynolds some positives to reflect on, but he emphasised that this performance was a long way off that of the top-six side they have ambitions of becoming.

‘There’s a lot we need to work on,’ he said.

‘There’s a lot that I thought we had corrected by now and we didn’t seem to get there, but the thing was, when we’re in the trenches, we found a way to win.

‘Worthing had us down to 14 players for 60 [sic] minutes of the game and they still can’t find space against us. If we had them down to 14, there would have been a pile on. So awesome work from our boys to find a way to grind out a big win.’

On a day when there was palpable optimism in the Garenne Stand before kick off, largely thanks to the two promising pre-season performances Raiders had produced in August, if anything the hosts arguably got off to too good a start.

From Charlie Simmonds’ opening kick off, the green-and-whites had forced a knock on from Worthing within the first 20 seconds and the subsequent scrum resulted in a penalty when the visitors could not cope with the power Guernsey’s pack exerted on them.

That set-piece was kicked to touch and a trademark catch-and-drive line-out ended with Dom Rice touching down for the opening try within three minutes.

Although Ciaran McGann’s conversion attempt smacked an upright to miss out on the extras, Guernsey were seemingly up and running.

But perhaps that had all been a bit too easy because for the next 20 minutes or so the home side’s execution was poor and some of their decision making questionable to say the least – at one stage a demonstrative Reynolds was leaving his troops in no doubt as to his discontent on the sidelines.

Gradually Worthing worked their way into the game and two penalties from Louis Ellis briefly took them a point ahead.

Even when Guernsey came up with something positive, such as when Matt Creber won a penalty with a smart piece of jackling, the following line-out was a shambles due to a miscommunication.

But with quarter-of-an-hour of the first half remaining, suddenly the home Raiders clicked and the result was a scintillating try.

It came off the back of another strong scrum with centres John Dawe and McGann combining well on halfway before fly-half Simmonds was released through a gap on the wrap around. He drew the last defender and used Anthony Armstrong on his outside as a decoy, throwing the dummy before darting to the line.

McGann added the extras and Guernsey were back in front.

They had a golden chance to increase their lead five minutes later, but McGann’s pass failed to find Ethan Smith on the left wing when much of the hard work had been done. Seconds later, they were a man down.

It was hard to see what had sparked a scuffle that broke out as a ruck formed, but the upshot of it was that Ceillam was dismissed for having thrown a punch. For the remaining nine minutes of the half, Worthing were the better side and halved their deficit through Ellis’ third penalty.

He had the opportunity to draw his side level on the stroke of half-time, but he dragged his longest penalty attempt wide and Guernsey were thankful the interval came when it did.
Not that they got off to a great start in the second half, though, as within 50 seconds

Worthing had used their numerical advantage to send Max Boxall scampering through a gap in the home defence and he offloaded to fullback Bruno Perry to score. If Reynolds’ words at half-time had not already had the desired effect, conceding that try certainly shook Guernsey into action and their response was pretty emphatic as the remaining points in the game arrived in the next six minutes.

Simmonds, who was a livewire all afternoon even if not always in a way that benefitted his side, created the third try with a quick tap penalty that saw him make good ground before being hauled down just a couple of yards short of the line. Guernsey patiently worked through a few phases and created an overlap to the left where McGann forced his way over.

Within a matter of moments, the home side were camped deep in the Worthing 22 once more and eventually they worked the ball to the right where, after receiving the ball from Callum Roberts, there was still plenty for Armstrong to do, but with a combination of power, pace and some nifty footwork, he managed to get through the covering defence to score.

The hosts had more chances to score throughout the second half with both replacement hooker James Burger and new No 8 Josh Poullet going close while the referee surprisingly awarded only a penalty and not a penalty-try when a rolling maul was illegally pulled down a couple of metres from the line.

Worthing saw more of the ball in the final 10 minutes, but stout defence and a couple of important turnovers at crucial times ensured Guernsey passed their opening test of the campaign.