Late acrobatics from Hardy rescues win for Reds

JERSEY’S Kieran Hardy followed his own chargedown to score the winning try at the death to overcome a plucky effort by visitors Richmond.

The replacement scrumhalf ’s decisive intervention earned four valuable points for his side, leaving his head coach Harvey Biljon a relieved man.

He said: “We will take the win – I think we had a bit of luck on our side at the end.

“I was disappointed with our inaccuracy and inability to control the pitch, there were a large number of opportunities we wasted.

“There are a lot of areas we’ll need to work on, but I was pleased to only concede nine points – our defensive record is excellent and we’ll need that facing Bedford, Ealing and Bristol in our next three games.”

Nick Selway’s 13th try of the season from a powerful driving maul gave the home side an early lead. Richmond’s Rob Kirby’s missed one penalty chance to reduce the arrears but then slotted his next attempt after Ross Grimstone charged down a 22 drop-out by the Reds.

When Jake Armstrong was yellow-carded for taking down a Richmond maul, the Reds were forced to dig deep in defence, but managed to survive without conceding any further points.

The error count by both teams increased after the break, with a large number of handling errors in greasy conditions and inaccurate kicking, especially by Jersey.

Jersey maintained a territorial advantage, but on their two forays into the

opposition’s half, Richmond won penalties which Kirby slotted to put his side in front.

Reds finally managed to increase the pressure in the closing stages. Josh Hodson crossed in the corner, but play was called back for a forward pass.

It proved costly as soon after Hardy flung himself at an attempted clearance by Kirby and was first to react and pounce on the loose ball.

Richmond’s Steve Hill was disappointed his players couldn’t hold on to win.

He said: “I think we did enough to win the game – we knew Jersey had a strong pack and the conditions probably favoured them, but I thought our pack really fronted up and we put ourselves in a position to win the game.

“I was proud of the effort and the discipline of the players – coming away with a point is our best result here in recent years.”