Jersey boys ready to put on another big show

JERSEY are the only side to beat London Irish in the Championship this term and boss Harvey Biljon is expecting a full-blow reaction from the Exiles at the Madejski today.

The Islanders ran out 15-11 winners at St Peter’s last Saturday to bag their ninth consecutive win and keep alive their semi-final hopes, but Biljon is fully aware travelling to Reading in a knock-out match will test his side even further.

He said: “The challenge of playing a team back to back is always very tough. The preparation is different even if we’ve been in a good place this week after a good win against the league leaders.

“We have to refocus because it’s knock-out rugby. It’ll be a hostile environment but let’s look at it in a different way and embrace the challenge.

“We’ve got that experience of going away to tough opposition in the semi-finals as we did last year at Yorkshire Carnegie.

“We need to draw from that experience and from the confidence we got last week but we know we’re going to get a reaction from Irish.

On his side’s recent form he added: “The players know that on the day they can go and challenge anyone in the league.

“We’ve got to make sure [last week] was not just a fluke or a one-off - we’ve got to make sure we can step up.

“We’ve just got to make sure we go out there and play to the best of our ability and if we can get into that arm wrestle, in games like this something’s either going to go your way or it’s not.”