Jersey Reds 'show guts' to score late winner against Coventry

Nic Dolly's late try meant Jersey Reds were one of four teams to get a bonus-point win on the Championship's opening weekend of fixtures

Jersey Reds boss Harvey Biljon has praised his side's fortitude after scoring a last-minute try with 13 men as they beat Coventry 22-15 in their opening Championship fixture.

Having seen Mark Best and Auguy Slowik sin-binned Jersey won a scrum penalty, kicked to the corner and drove Nic Dolly over from the resulting line-out.

Two Greg Dyer tries and one from Luc Jones saw Jersey lead 17-9.

But two Rory Jennings's penalties put Coventry close before Dolly's score.

"A fair bit of guts needed to be shown by our players, make no mistake," Biljon told BBC Radio Jersey.

"We did invite a fair bit of pressure on ourselves with a fair amount of ill-discipline, which we've got to get right.

"But we made some brave decisions today and that'll pay dividends because we went away and were able to maximise points."

Biljon was keen to praise his side's defence as the visitors failed to score a try despite Jersey having three men yellow-carded during the match.

"It wasn't comfortable," he said. "We were under pressure, they had a fair amount of possession and I think we had two opportunities in their half in the second half and thankfully we were able to take points.

"The Coventry squad - that's some squad that they've put together, it's a team that are going to be top three or top four, and it shows just how much character we've had to produce to get that result."