Guernsey’s Siam heroes are showered with champagne within minutes of retaining the famous old trophy in front of a 3,000-plus crowd at a boisterous Foote’s Lane. (Picture by Serena Tremlett, 0574146)
THE best performance of the season was saved for the biggest occasion as Guernsey made history by retaining the Siam Cup on Saturday.
More than 3,000 people were at Foote’s Lane to watch the green-and-whites once again defy their league position to beat Jersey – who will play two divisions above the Sarnians next season – 22-13.
And on a day that saw Tongans, New Zealanders, Australians and South Africans as well as players from all over the British Isles grace the pitch, it was a local boy who deservedly took the plaudits and the man-of-the-match award. Jim Elliott was nothing short of awesome, opening the scoring with a brilliant individual effort before playing much of game with his head swathed in bandages after having been caught by a stray knee in a tackle.
‘Jersey will always be favourites – I would love to play in a Guernsey team who are favourites for the Siam – but it is nice to have the cup for another year,’ said the man who, along with teammates James Regnard and Darren Jones has three winners’ medals – this being the first one on home soil.
‘It is nice to put in a performance like that on a big occasion and at home. The crowd were louder than I have ever heard them here.
‘I was certainly quite shocked with how it started because I expected Jersey to be raring to go, but it did not really turn out that way and I think they perhaps fell into the same trap as last year when they looked for their stars to get them through but they weren’t really up for it.’
The home side’s other points came from two Paul Thomas tries, one from Regnard and a Nick Barton conversion.
Andy Bailey, who became the first Guernsey captain to retain the cup since 1962, added that his side had done everything that had been asked of them in the build-up to the match, namely, be disciplined, defend well and play for the full 80 minutes.
‘From the beginning we dominated the game,’ he said.
‘We were better than them in all areas of the game – we won the scrum, won the line-out and won the tackle. The guys were superb.
‘We will go for a hat-trick now.’
Jersey skipper Kern Yates was gracious in defeat and admitted the better team had won.
‘From playing in the game I felt that Guernsey wanted it a little bit more,’ he said.
‘Coming off last week’s big game [a promotion play-off win over Staines] I thought it would give us a big boost going into this, but I feel there were a lot of tired legs out there and it was perhaps one game too many.
‘But that’s not to take anything away from Guernsey – it was a great performance from them.’
Article posted on 5th May, 2008 - 9.30am
One Article Comment
it was a pleasure to be a part of a winning siam cup team,long may the cup stay in guernsey!!!!!!
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