Worthing captain James Arthur’s weekly column (September 17)

WHILE the away trip to Jersey is by no means the furthest club we will visit this year, it is unique.

It was the first time that we have flown to play a league match. The decision was made early not to stay overnight, as we wanted to avoid a tour-type mentality and limit the distractions that come with a trip like this.

The team saw several changes from last week with Will Smith being unavailable, meaning I moved to the second row, Jamie Redmayne went to 6 and Finlay Coxon-Smith made his first start for the club at 8. This week also saw the return of Joe Burns to prop and Pete Cleveland in for the injured Matt Miles at hooker.

The game itself was disappoint-ing. We didn’t start well and were on the back foot from the kick off.

We let Jersey play their high-tempo game, running from deep at every opportunity and keeping the ball in hand, to get their large pack rumbling forward and then releasing their quick backs.

By the time we decided to start playing rugby, we were three tries down. To our credit, we then started to take the game to Jersey and ended the first half strongly.

The second half was a much more even affair, we scored the only try and enjoyed the majority of possession. The defence was better and although we finished the game defending our line, it was pleasing that we kept them out and prevented them gaining a bonus point.

Jersey will be a tough team to beat at home for anyone this year but I do feel we didn’t do ourselves justice.

We took too long to get into the game and probably showed them a little too much respect.

The loss, as I have already said, was disappointing but we will rebuild this week in training and prepare for Old Albanians at home on Saturday, who have started the season well, with two wins already under their belt.

The rest of the fixtures saw wins for Henley, Old Albanians, Taunton, Canterbury, Southend and two close games resulted in narrow wins for Clifton and Ealing.

We’d like to thank those who made the trip to Jersey to support us, and hope as many of you can come and cheer us along this week at home for a 3pm kick-off.