Queripel: 'We had to go somewhere'

NERINE TRUST Rangers' elevation to the National Clubs netball league is vital to the club's development and that of their production line of young starlets. But it will bring problems, admitted coach Gill Queripel, one of them being: 'Where do we find the finance?

After their fantastic promotion efforts at Kettering on Saturday, Queripel says the club 'have to get their thinking caps on fast'.

The NCL season starts in September and the club have to find the funds to make four double-header trips to the UK next winter.

'It will cost us an awful lot of money and the girls will have to find it themselves.

'But we haven't gone into this with our eyes closed,' she added.

The Rangers club supremo said that the idea of entering the National League dates back to the tailend of the season just gone.

'We knew we had a good mix of talented youngsters and experience that were not being pushed.

'We had to go somewhere to develop.'

Queripel says that the club's talented crop of youngsters will benefit enormously from the National Clubs League experience.

Naomi Taylor, who was unavailable for the weekend qualifiers due to school exams, is already part and parcel of the first-team squad, but others are waiting in the wings, girls such as Becky Warren and Zola Bourgaize.

Nerine triumphed in Kettering despite fielding a starting team that had never previously played together.

That is part of the problem facing a coach who has two of her best players - Nena Bourgaize and Claire Queripel - away at university.

Regular first-teamers Dawn Browning and Juliette Godwin also missed the trip, but with new signing Sonia Grant-Yardall a straight replacement for Browning 'they settled very quickly', according to their coach.

But, given their total domination of the local scene in recent times, is Nerine's sheer strength bad news for Guernsey betball as a whole?

Queripel, president of the GNA until recently, said she can see the dangers, but would work with the association to ensure against damaging the top-flight of the Commodore League.

'We are still going to need to play the local league, because we will need the match practice.

'But we don't want to do something that is going to stagnate the First Division. We're in a very difficult situation.'

Whether the current Rangers side is the best ever, its coach is unsure and does not wish to put them on a pedestal.

'It is a very good side and it is getting better. More importantly, it is a good squad of players and not just a team.

'It is very difficult to equate this team to the one of 10 years ago,' pointing to the fact that the whole approach to modern-day netball is so different.

'Ten years ago you would think nothing of having your team just before a game. But now, the whole physical and mental preparation side is different.'