WORCESTER director of rugby Dean Ryan insisted Jersey deserved their victory after edging Warriors in a tense encounter at St Peter.

The hosts dominated the opening 15 minutes but Andy Symons got the first points on the board after 17 minutes with a penalty before Fautua Otto collected his own chip-and-chase to give Jersey the lead.

Sam Smith then scored straight from the kick-off before two more penalties from Symons and one for Aaron Penberthy made it 14-11 in Warriors’ favour at the break.

The Jersey full-back notched another three points after the interval but Sam Betty’s converted try from a driving maul gave Warriors an eight-point lead which they held until 12 minutes from the end.

But up popped Ryan Hodson off the back of a maul with the impressive Penberthy slotting over to put Jersey within one.

The man-of-the-match then slapped over a 45-metre drop-goal with several minutes left before Symons missed a golden opportunity to win it for Warriors in the dying moments as the Islanders held on.

Sixways boss Ryan, was quick to pay tribute to Jersey and Penberthy’s kicking game.

“Give Jersey the credit they deserve as that puts a marker down to tell you whereabouts they are,” said Ryan.

“Playing in these wide open games with strong winds you learn more about game management than you would in the Premiership because you’re not in a stadium.

“Their full-back kicked fantastically while we didn’t. In the circumstances with the wind and slope that advantage counted and ultimately that was the difference between the sides.

“Bedford was another situation where you had gale force winds and we had to spend 40 minutes working things out.

“Today was the same and it showed that they understood it better than us and could play it better.”

The Warriors chief also admitted his side missed glorious chances to pull away in the contest.

He explained: “They kept better field position than us. That’s happened in the past and we’ve had enough to get over the top of sides but today we didn’t.

“It was a great competition which was well set-up by Jersey and effectively we lost the real tight margins around the kicking game.

“They held us in our 22, we kicked badly to try and get out and they just got straight back in. Sometimes you’ve just got to weather that storm.

“We had our chances. We missed a lineout where we really should have nailed it down but we weren’t far enough ahead to be able to miss that sort of opportunity.”

Ryan knows his side have got out of jail in similar situations before but stressed that it wasn’t always going to be the case.

“Sometimes when somebody hits a drop-goal from the halfway line to win a game, you just have to clap,” added the Warriors boss.

“Now we’ve got to gain from it and move on.”