Invasion of The Channel Islands

*Guernsey Raiders Ladies 1st XV v Horsham Women 1st XV

Sunday 28th January 2024
The day began at some silly hour, the moon shining brightly on our weather beaten forwards who grumbled slightly at having to leave their abodes of warmth and hot tea, our darling backs in complete shock at the hour of the day not even the moon beams bearing down on them could lighten their mood – surely this isn’t rugby they were heard to mumble, where’s our nice warm changing rooms , forwards do this silly stuff we wait and make our appearance later.

Security checks cleared and boarding commenced, the Aurigny staff cautious over accepting a thronging mass of rugby players but all was good.

Or enigmatic head coach Timothy Smith soon made himself comfortable and curled up for his inflight beauty sleep – 40 mins was not enough !

The 22 seat coach met our slowly awakening behemoth of a team, begrudgingly awakening to accept that their international game in Gurnsey was an hour or so away.
Warm ups began, our senior pro Chloe Murray leading by example once again with our gnarly forwards shaming of the jet lag, the backs looking on in awe at witnessing the forwards precision warm ups, they were still looking for their warm changing room but ably mustered by our Captain “snake hips” Addison they were quickly to work running through their tried and tested moves.
Sadly our Captain failed to win the toss, our hosts graciously asking us to play into the almost gale like wind whipping in from the Channel exacerbating the effects of the Mediterranean like sunshine, our players suffering cases of windburn which needed to be alleviated post game with lashings of moisturiser and bubbles.

Kick off at 13.00 –

13.01 our swift winger / scrum half Mrs Birch raced in to score from out wide on the left wing under the posts, our enigmatic kicker “shawn” ably converting 0-7 to the visitors. Within 4 minutes our strike centre Kacey Matthews scored – another conversion – surely our previous score against guernsey couldn’t be matched! The tenacious hosts fought back with their indomitable Donkey spirit (look it up!) 5-14 then a tense 1 minutes as the hosts battled against the imposing visitors, 12-14 is this going to be a fight?
24 minutes into the half and a dramatic injury to our very own oap, a broken nose all blood n stuff everywhere, some say it was a planned move to draw our stalwart of the second row off of the bench, on trundled Jody “smiler” Morris Jones to make her international debut fresh from the magic manipulations of our young physio Ben.

Our very own blonde bombshell of the forwards Chanel “au revoir ref” Reid stormed over before half time, her prop partner Alyce O'Conner playing in unison giving us glimpses of their enigmatic partnership we enjoyed watching last season – closer than expected at half time 12-28.

Time for some input from our Captain, wise words and statements of action identified and second half commenced. Our Forwards dominated the scrums, the lineouts and positional play on the pitch, against a much larger pack, all the better to allow our backs to play as they should with flair and abandon.

Mrs Birch, slowly working her way to senior pro status scored another two sniping tries from her scrum half position. Our fleet of foot dynamic full back Georgia Pearce ran in a further 3 tries. Fleet of foot and confident handling on show, our strike centre Kacey “chips” Matthews scored another dynamic strong try.

Unfortunately our gracious Hosts simply couldn’t continue from their donkey determination in the first 15 minutes and Horsham’s Ladies stormed to a 12- 61 away win.

The forward of the match Chanel “au revoir ref” Reid

The Back of the match Georgia Pearce

Player of the match Kacey “chips” Matthews

Special shout outs go to :
Jo Thomas – our dynamic replacement and Reporter on the ground.
East Grinstead u16 Boys who stayed on to support the Horsham ladies – most appreciated lads !!
Aurigny – thanks for getting our ladies to Guernsey and back safely

Scribed be Pete 'The Guvner' Softley