This Is Guernsey

By Gareth Le Prevost

Saints’ Ben Coulter climbs above Rangers’ Dave Parrott to head the ball at Blanche Pierre Lane. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0538863)

St Martin’s 1, Rangers 0

MAC GALLIENNE felt compelled to apologise to ‘anyone who came to watch’ this poor excuse of a Priaulx match last night.

St Martin’s fully merited the three points for undoubtedly being the better team on the night, but that was not saying much.

Poor Nathan Pattimore must have been wondering if anyone would notice if he sneaked off to watch his beloved Arsenal face AC Milan because the Saints goalkeeper certainly didn’t have anything to do between the sticks.

The Rangers coach is as honest as they come and when his frank assessment is that ‘we could not string two passes together, we even had trouble making one,’ you know it was a particularly bad day at the office for the red-and-blacks.

Just 24 hours after a terrific advertisement for Youth One football at the Corbet Field the first half at Blanche Pierre Lane was best described as ideal treatment for any insomniacs out there.

The only noteworthy moment of the first 45 was Liam Roffey’s opportunistic 30-yard left-foot shot, which dipped and swerved quite violently and drew an excellent save from Chris Parrott.

‘To be fair, Fal and I agreed on the way in at half-time that we should try and make it something of a game – so we came out and played worse,’ said Gallienne, who decided on the first option of whether to laugh or cry.

Saints, though, certainly did improve and started creating chances.

In an eight-minute purple patch, Ben Coulter twice went close at full stretch and Jamie Dodd forced Parrott into action before Chris Mauger slotted home the only goal.

It was Coulter’s pass that set up the right winger after Jason Winch and Dodd had done well to win the ball back out on the left flank, and the Saints number seven made no mistake from 15 yards.

‘We thoroughly deserved it even though there wasn’t much quality,’ Colin Fallaize said.

‘We were getting too much involved in the battle in the first half rather than thinking about what we were trying to do with the football. We changed a couple of things at half-time to give us a better shape to play and that was the difference.’