East Grinstead V Jersey U16 Boys

Match Report Simon Le Moignan
After another early morning meet at Jersey Airport & smooth flight to Gatwick for once there wasn’t a mad dash to get to the ground which meant a stop for brekkie & chill pre match

This maybe contributed to the slow start from Jersey who were soon on the backfoot in the game due to East Grinstead coming out of the blocks from the whistle playing a physical carrying style from their forwards pack & well orchestrated backline through the interlink play of their 9 & 10 resulting in them gaining an early lead

Jersey boys then started getting a foothold in the game & although they breached the East Grinstead almost shoreline defensive wall on occasions the last piece of the play wasn’t quite happening which led to East Grinstead leading at the half time break 19-0 which didn’t reflect the effort & character shown by the valiant Jersey side with the forwards

After making various changes to the Jersey lineup the trend continued with East Grinstead scoring early in the second half
This then led to a resurgence by the Jersey squad led by Xander Frisby aka Tigger, Ollie Houghton aka Pest & the rest of the squad hunting the opposition down & forcing them into errors & Jersey becoming dominant in all aspects of the game which led to the opposition receiving a yellow card, resulting in Xander/Tigger scoring a well deserved try on his return to playing after 15 months out injured with an ACL injury, the ensuing celebrations of himself & his brothers on the pitch showed how much it meant to them all with the extra 2 points being added by Toby

From the restart jersey took the game to the opposition & with Toby Harris pulling the strings at fly half for the first time competitively in tandem with Harry le Brocq aka HLB the boys took control of the second half & kept battering away at the East Grinstead line which resulted in some great phases of play resulting in Joe Griffiths blasting through like a ginger tomcat chasing down their prey & scoring their second try narrowly unconverted by Toby

The Jersey boys then turned every opportunity to attack into a mission to drag themselves back & unfortunately the clock was against them to the relief of the home team who congratulated them on the fight & courage shown during the game to give them one of their hardest games of the league campaign

Players of the match
Forward  - Xander Frisby
Back – Toby Harris

Alex Edwards
Alexander Powell
Arthur Mangematin
Cole Gueno
Ethan Nicolle
Harry le Brocq
James Molteno
Joseph Griffiths
Joshua Fudge
Luke Cadoret
Lyle Pritchard
Oliver Houghton
Shay Gogan
Sonny Barrow
Stellan Tonsberg
Thomas Edey
Toby Harris
Tomasz Dobrowolski
Will Wilson
Xander Frisby

Coach Simon Le Moignan
Manager Nigel Higginson