ANDY BAILEY expects Purley John Fisher to be one of Guernsey’s main rivals for promotion this season. A last-minute penalty gave the Surrey side a 26-24 home victory over the Sarnians in the opening fixture of London Three South-West on Saturday, but the green-and-whites’ captain admitted that the hosts deserved to take the spoils.

‘They were a better outfit than the London One team [Thanet Wanderers] who we played the week before,’ Bailey said.

‘They were a very good team and well drilled.’

Purley John Fisher just missed promotion to London Two when they lost a play-off at the end of last season. It had been a similar story a year earlier as well.

Due to a slight rejigging of the leagues, they have been moved from the south-east region for this campaign.

Bailey believes his side had the ability to beat them but let themselves down in certain areas.

‘Our old problem raised its head again because our discipline was not great,’ he said.

‘In the first half it was particularly poor and we found ourselves 18-3 down just after half-time.

‘Then we found a gear and played 30 minutes of really good rugby to build a six-point lead.’

Newcomer Dylan Chatterton was the star of the show for Guernsey, scoring two tries and setting up another for Jim Elliott, whom Bailey also singled out for praise in his defensive work.

Nick Barton converted all three scores having already kicked a penalty.

However, Purley John Fisher responded with a late try before they took advantage of Sarnian indiscipline once more to grab the win.

‘If we had won, it would have been a bit of an undeserved victory, but we showed great fight to come back like that,’ Bailey said.

‘I believe we have lost to a team who will be in the top two at the end of the season.

‘We are going to have a few words in training this week about our discipline and also our accuracy in attack was not fantastic. We did not have a specialist hooker playing because we had three unavailable, so that did not help, but we have things to work on.’