Every point remains important for Raiders
Freezing temperatures have impacted Raiders on a weekend when it is forecast to reach 12C in St Albans.
Guernsey were due to travel to Old Albanians two months ago, but a frozen pitch caused the rearrangement of the fixture to tomorrow, when they will now be without co-captain Lewis Hillier, in-form Sam Boyland and his fellow scrum-half Dale Rutledge.
‘It’s a rescheduled game, so some of the boys already had something on,’ said Guernsey director of rugby Jordan Reynolds.
‘You are always going to be missing some players when it was supposed to be a bye week, but we are not missing as many as we could have been.
‘One of the downsides is that it would have been good to keep the same back-line just to create some consistency. That’s been one of our problems in the make-up of the team – the amount we’ve had to chop and change – so it’s hard to build that consistency.
‘But we have got some good players coming in and it is their chance to stake a claim.’
OAs are three places but just five points above Raiders in National Two East with the sides yet to meet this season.
‘They have been a bit of an in and out team so far,’ said Reynolds.
‘They have had some big wins but we’ve also seen them struggle at times – maybe that’s due to player depth and it will be interesting to see what players they have available to them this weekend.
‘We have not performed that well going up to OAs in previous years, but a lot of the talk this week has been around putting in a good, strong 80 minutes.'
With the loss of a bye weekend, Raiders have to play another four games before they get a rest and Reynolds has identified that run of games as crucial to the season.
‘We need to be constantly competing throughout these games and even if we are not winning, every single point we can pick up is important. But there is a pretty good feeling in the group at the moment that we can push for a win.’
Raiders team
Steventon, Burger, Currie, Hackett, Webb, Creber, Dom Rice, Culverhouse, Simmonds, Teasdale, Smith, N McGann, C McGann, Armstrong, Roberts. Replacements: Dunn, Ceillam, Creed, Veillard, Dan Rice.
