Coach Dai Burton would have it no other way.
‘There’s been no greater motivation than being picked this time, after what happened a year ago,’ he said.
‘Even Banners (Matt Banahan, former London Irish academy player who will sign for Bath in July) who was disappointed not to have come on earlier from the bench last year wants to play.
‘Every one of these players wants to win, and the squad virtually picked themselves.
This was team selection, by the team.
At home, and having avoided relegation, just as we avoided relegation! – Guernsey will be favourites.
‘Our strength is in the pack; in the hitting area.
Their strength is all over and they have a good back row, good half-backs and they’ll want to play a game with pace out wide.
‘We’ve played a different style of rugby this year.
‘I’ve no doubt that you’ll be able to hear some of the tackles in the stands: there’ll be no prisoners.
I predict it will be a close game and, whichever pack is allowed to dominate, will win.’ Burton is also hoping that there won’t be a repeat of last year’s occasional free for all, which saw Roger Quirk red-carded and Steve O’Brien sin-binned, which in turn reduced Jersey to 13 players and allowed, for a ten minute period, the Guernsey South African pairing at half-back to boss the game.
‘They’ll try to disrupt us in the forwards again and if they bring their Welsh No 8, Matt Morgan in, they’ll be lively in the back row.
I don’t know their team.
Rob Box has stepped down and John Colley who was coaching their 2nd XV, has stepped in.
‘We have four forwards on the bench and three backs; the backs to change the game, the forwards to maintain the pressure.
It’s as simple as that.’ Burton’s attitude is that, in his last game as Jersey coach, this is the one game when the players will call the shots.
