After 36 consecutive trips to the winner’s enclosure, Jersey RFC’s men are looking to get back in the saddle as they travel to Salisbury this weekend.
The need to remount follows defeat last weekend when visitors Guildford claimed a deserved win at St Peter by 29-22, breaking a winning run that dated back to JRFC’s entry to the league pyramid in September 2022.
Leading Regional 2 South Central by 11 points, the Island side will be looking to bounce back and should be boosted by news of a major new sponsorship deal for the club.
Digital investment platform CoinShares has agreed a three-season deal with JRFC, supporting rugby at all levels and assuming naming rights to the club’s ground at St Peter, henceforth to be known as CoinShares Park.
Landick’s Lines and team news
Doing his best Corporal Jones impression, “Don’t Panic” was the message from Head Coach Myles Landick as he reflected on the Guildford defeat and looked forward to this weekend’s trip to Salisbury’s Castle Road home.
“We know teams are going to come hard at us as league leaders and fair play to Guildford – they did that and we didn’t cope with it that well, especially early in the game,” he said.
“It was encouraging that we got back into the game and could have drawn or even won it at the end, but we’ve talked about it as a coaching group and had a really positive training session with the boys on Tuesday to re-focus on what’s ahead.”
Not looking at the league table was among the messages from Landick to his troops – he pointed out that while Salisbury may only have won four times so far this season, one of those wins was against Guildford.
The men in red will welcome back some familiar faces to their travelling XVIII, notably in the back row where Tim Corson and George Willmott join up for the first time in two months.
Euan Spencer completes the back row as skipper Evan Whitson is missing after a nasty head injury against Guildford, meaning the captaincy passes to hooker Jack Macfarlane, who’ll pack down alongside Joe Ridgway, promoted from the bench to starting loose-head with George Thomas unavailable.
Three players come into the back line from the previous outing. One is a regular in the team – Nathan Rogers – but the others are less familiar. South African Bevan Biggs, who has impressed in training since moving to Jersey in October, will make his debut at wing, while at full-back there’s a return to JRFC colours for Chris Levesley, who featured alongside Landick in the club’s 1st XV in National League days and has maintained touch with his home club during his time in England and Wales over recent years.
Landick said: “Chris and I have spoken several times and it’ll be great to have a proven operator like him in the side, and obviously it’s also really good to see Tim and George returning to our pack.”
Recent Colts graduate Harvey Evans is set to make his first appearance of the season from the bench, maintaining the trend of young Island players getting their opportunities with the senior side.
JRFC (15-9, 1-8): Chris Levesley; Bevan Biggs, Nathan Rogers, Dom Mayo, Sam Harvey; Aaron Penberthy, Max Harrington; Joe Ridgway, Jack Macfarlane (capt), Tom Wilson, Tom Tilstone, Nathan Thomas, Euan Spencer, Tim Corson, George Willmott. Replacements: Harvey Evans, Jack Preston, Callum Cuthbert.
Previous encounter – October 21st, 2023
The first-ever encounter between the sides took place at St Peter and saw 10 tries scored, eight of which went to the home side.
Two Eryk Swiech tries and others from Aaron Penberthy and Euan Davies established a 22-3 lead at half-time, and although the visitors crossed the try-line twice in the second half, JRFC kept a healthy lead as Spencer, Max Harrington, Rogers and Bryn Edwards each claimed tries.
Salisbury RFC
The origins of rugby being played in Salisbury date back to 1878, a year before the equivalent date for Jersey, although Salisbury RFC was officially founded in 1912/13.
League rugby, then the Courage Club Championship, started in 1987. At the time Salisbury were classed as one of the top 50 - 60 clubs in the country and were allocated a place in Area League South, level 4 of the national club hierarchy, a position maintained until reorganisation of the leagues in 1990.
Following reorganisation the Green-and-Whites competed for several years in Southwest division 1, level 5 before becoming established at level 6 with the occasional foray at levels 5 and 7. Following the recent reorganisation of the league structure, the club were competing again at level 6, finishing in ninth place in R2SC last season.
Parish Notices
After back-to-back away games, both of which were impressively won, JRFC Women have a weekend off following the withdrawal of prospective opponents Hove from the league. Our ladies will be back in action in the first game at CoinShares Park when they entertain Seaford on Saturday February 10th.
The great news for rugby supporters on the Island is that there’s loads of action coming up on home turf over the last three months of the season. Over the 11 Saturdays starting February 10th, there’ll be a home game on eight of them, with plenty of Guinness 6 Nations action also featuring on the menu.
Four of the home games are for the men, with league encounters against London Irish (next up on Saturday February 17th) and Newbury, plus friendlies against Caldy (March 9th) and Chinnor (a recently-confirmed fixture for Saturday April 20th – a fortnight before the Siam Cup).
Meanwhile the women also have four home games lined up, entertaining Seaford on February 10th and Beccehamians two weeks later, followed by East Grinstead on March 2nd and finally Beckenham on April 6th.
Full fixture info is available via the ‘Teams’ tabs on our website, jerseyrfc.rfu.club
CoinShares announcement: jerseyrfc.rfu.club/news/coinshares-becomes-lead-sponsor-for-jersey-rfc
Guildford match report: jerseyrfc.rfu.club/match/1062442/jersey-rfc-vs-guildford-rfc/
The need to remount follows defeat last weekend when visitors Guildford claimed a deserved win at St Peter by 29-22, breaking a winning run that dated back to JRFC’s entry to the league pyramid in September 2022.
Leading Regional 2 South Central by 11 points, the Island side will be looking to bounce back and should be boosted by news of a major new sponsorship deal for the club.
Digital investment platform CoinShares has agreed a three-season deal with JRFC, supporting rugby at all levels and assuming naming rights to the club’s ground at St Peter, henceforth to be known as CoinShares Park.
Landick’s Lines and team news
Doing his best Corporal Jones impression, “Don’t Panic” was the message from Head Coach Myles Landick as he reflected on the Guildford defeat and looked forward to this weekend’s trip to Salisbury’s Castle Road home.
“We know teams are going to come hard at us as league leaders and fair play to Guildford – they did that and we didn’t cope with it that well, especially early in the game,” he said.
“It was encouraging that we got back into the game and could have drawn or even won it at the end, but we’ve talked about it as a coaching group and had a really positive training session with the boys on Tuesday to re-focus on what’s ahead.”
Not looking at the league table was among the messages from Landick to his troops – he pointed out that while Salisbury may only have won four times so far this season, one of those wins was against Guildford.
The men in red will welcome back some familiar faces to their travelling XVIII, notably in the back row where Tim Corson and George Willmott join up for the first time in two months.
Euan Spencer completes the back row as skipper Evan Whitson is missing after a nasty head injury against Guildford, meaning the captaincy passes to hooker Jack Macfarlane, who’ll pack down alongside Joe Ridgway, promoted from the bench to starting loose-head with George Thomas unavailable.
Three players come into the back line from the previous outing. One is a regular in the team – Nathan Rogers – but the others are less familiar. South African Bevan Biggs, who has impressed in training since moving to Jersey in October, will make his debut at wing, while at full-back there’s a return to JRFC colours for Chris Levesley, who featured alongside Landick in the club’s 1st XV in National League days and has maintained touch with his home club during his time in England and Wales over recent years.
Landick said: “Chris and I have spoken several times and it’ll be great to have a proven operator like him in the side, and obviously it’s also really good to see Tim and George returning to our pack.”
Recent Colts graduate Harvey Evans is set to make his first appearance of the season from the bench, maintaining the trend of young Island players getting their opportunities with the senior side.
JRFC (15-9, 1-8): Chris Levesley; Bevan Biggs, Nathan Rogers, Dom Mayo, Sam Harvey; Aaron Penberthy, Max Harrington; Joe Ridgway, Jack Macfarlane (capt), Tom Wilson, Tom Tilstone, Nathan Thomas, Euan Spencer, Tim Corson, George Willmott. Replacements: Harvey Evans, Jack Preston, Callum Cuthbert.
Previous encounter – October 21st, 2023
The first-ever encounter between the sides took place at St Peter and saw 10 tries scored, eight of which went to the home side.
Two Eryk Swiech tries and others from Aaron Penberthy and Euan Davies established a 22-3 lead at half-time, and although the visitors crossed the try-line twice in the second half, JRFC kept a healthy lead as Spencer, Max Harrington, Rogers and Bryn Edwards each claimed tries.
Salisbury RFC
The origins of rugby being played in Salisbury date back to 1878, a year before the equivalent date for Jersey, although Salisbury RFC was officially founded in 1912/13.
League rugby, then the Courage Club Championship, started in 1987. At the time Salisbury were classed as one of the top 50 - 60 clubs in the country and were allocated a place in Area League South, level 4 of the national club hierarchy, a position maintained until reorganisation of the leagues in 1990.
Following reorganisation the Green-and-Whites competed for several years in Southwest division 1, level 5 before becoming established at level 6 with the occasional foray at levels 5 and 7. Following the recent reorganisation of the league structure, the club were competing again at level 6, finishing in ninth place in R2SC last season.
Parish Notices
After back-to-back away games, both of which were impressively won, JRFC Women have a weekend off following the withdrawal of prospective opponents Hove from the league. Our ladies will be back in action in the first game at CoinShares Park when they entertain Seaford on Saturday February 10th.
The great news for rugby supporters on the Island is that there’s loads of action coming up on home turf over the last three months of the season. Over the 11 Saturdays starting February 10th, there’ll be a home game on eight of them, with plenty of Guinness 6 Nations action also featuring on the menu.
Four of the home games are for the men, with league encounters against London Irish (next up on Saturday February 17th) and Newbury, plus friendlies against Caldy (March 9th) and Chinnor (a recently-confirmed fixture for Saturday April 20th – a fortnight before the Siam Cup).
Meanwhile the women also have four home games lined up, entertaining Seaford on February 10th and Beccehamians two weeks later, followed by East Grinstead on March 2nd and finally Beckenham on April 6th.
Full fixture info is available via the ‘Teams’ tabs on our website, jerseyrfc.rfu.club
CoinShares announcement: jerseyrfc.rfu.club/news/coinshares-becomes-lead-sponsor-for-jersey-rfc
Guildford match report: jerseyrfc.rfu.club/match/1062442/jersey-rfc-vs-guildford-rfc/
