Jersey 33 Birmingham & Solihull 8
Ben Harvey may have been on the winning side, but the Jersey
Head Coach still claimed his team had been taught a lesson by their
plucky opponents. It was the contact area that was Harvey's
concern, and the reason he saw for his team's failure to notch more
than a solitary second-half try, thereby falling one short of a
bonus point. "Bees had some experienced players who are experts at
the breakdown and they made it tough for us," Harvey said. "For me
this made the difference between a three-try win and a rout and if
we want to compete at the top end of this league we'll have to
improve." Jersey's Head Coach admitted he was being a
perfectionist, and also praised many of the good points in his
team's display after their opening defeat at Fylde, including a
well-drilled set-piece, a 100% goal-kicking record and the
quickly-developing relationship between scrum half Nicky Griffiths
and Ross Broadfoot outside him. After a nervous opening period
Broadfoot opened the scoring, soon cancelled out by Dan Hawkes
after the former Jersey man had missed his opening effort. The home
team then upped their game, Griffiths went close before another
Broadfoot penalty made it 6-3. Another Griffiths' break led to
Jersey's opening try through James Copsey, and on the stroke of
half time superb approach work by Glenn Bryce and Nathan Hannay
presented Donovan Sanders with a straightforward try. Many home
fans switched ends in anticipation of further second half tries,
but the first incident of note was a prolonged scrap which saw Rob
Connolly of Bees sin-binned for foul play. On the hour Jersey were
awarded a penalty try, but the final quarter was frustrating for
the home side. The visitors' attempts to run the ball from
everywhere were laced with danger, but Jersey failed to punish some
mistakes, and then with 10 minutes to play the ball was turned over
and Warwick Lahmert ran virtually the length of the field to score
for Bees. Jersey continued to press, but with only two minutes of
injury time added, the clock ran out on the efforts to secure a
fourth try. Bees' skipper Jack Preece said his side had encountered
a good team who had fed off their opponents' mistakes. "It's hard
to compete in a game when you make so many errors," he said.
"Jersey were strong in the set-piece, as expected, but we need to
tighten up the way we play in order to win games."
Man of the match: Graham Bell (Jersey)
Jersey Tries: Copsey 28, Sanders 38, Penalty 57 Conversions:
Broadfoot 28, 38, Turner 57 Penalties: Broadfoot 9, 21, 29, 43
Birmingham & Solihull Try: Lahmert 70 Penalty: Hawkes 13
HT: 23-3 Attendance: 1,525
Yellow cards: Brennan (Jersey) Padian and Connolly (Bees)
Jersey: Bryce, O'Brien B, Copsey, Sanders, Dawson, Broadfoot,
Griffiths, Ellershaw, Felton, Brennan, Hannay, Rodgers, Thompson,
O'Brien S, Bell. Replacements: Landick, Clyde-Smith, Trower,
McCormack, Turner
Birmingham & Solihull: Nanci, Winter, White, Connolly, Pons,
Hawkes, Lahmert, Padian, Preece, Tau, Quarrie, Todd, Brightwell,
Farmer, Hopley. Replacements: Long, Darkintis, McMillan, Gale,
Lowden
Referee: Michael Tutty
