Following Jersey RFC’s trip to play a National Two East match with Esher yesterday, club chair Dan McAlister gave the following statement:
“Having lost a competitive game at Esher, our feelings were compounded by the team not being able to get back to Jersey last night. Whilst the flight from London Gatwick taxied at the scheduled time, it returned to stand and stood there for a few hours before finally being cancelled around 9.30pm.
“As this was a group booking, with 21 people due to fly home yesterday, there was no scope for rebooking given that it is half-term and sufficient flights were not available today. It has been necessary to rebook the group from Southampton on Monday morning, with those affected spending Saturday and Sunday nights at airport hotels at Gatwick and Southampton respectively.
“As a community club we have to work incredibly hard to fund local rugby and the travel required to fulfil fixtures. Put simply, this will cost thousands and thousands of pounds, including unforeseen hotel costs, albeit we hope that a significant proportion of this expenditure may be recoverable. Of equal importance is the impact on the squad, who will not get back to Jersey until Monday after the extension of their 12-hour day-trip to 48 hours.
“Whilst we’ll leave the authorities to investigate the circumstances as to why Jersey Airport had to close yesterday evening, the acts of a few have had far-impacting consequences.”
After a highly competitive first half, which saw Esher score a try in the final play to take a 19-12 lead into the break, a plucky effort by the visiting side could not keep their opponents from adding four more tries in the second period to make the final score 41-12. Full match report to follow.
Jersey RFC Men will host league leaders Oundle at CoinShares Park next Saturday, November 7th, with kick-off at 3.15pm. JRFC Women will have a weekend off following a tight encounter with Canterbury on home turf yesterday, the game finishing 15-15.
