Top-three finish is the aim

SONIA GRANT-YENDELL has set her sights on a top-three finish in the English Counties League South-West Division. The Guernsey coach was delighted with her side's efforts at the weekend when the Sarnians thrashed the Isle of Wight 57-18 and gave table-toppers East Dorset a real scare before going down 53-50.

Those results gave Grant-Yendell a won two, lost two record in her first season as island coach and she is very content with that.

'The two teams to beat us are first and second in the league. We are fourth at the moment; hopefully we will win our next game at home and if we can win our last two away games, we should secure a place at the top end of the table. I am hoping to finish third; anything more would be a bonus,' said the player-coach.

As expected, the Isle of Wight proved to be weak opposition but Grant-Yendell was happy with the attitude shown by her players and the fact that she was able to use all of her 10-strong squad.

'It was a really good team effort. I was really pleased with how well the girls worked as a unit,' she said.

'Our defence was excellent and our attack was just too fast for them.

'The girls kept up the pressure throughout, which was good to see. The performance gave the girls confidence to have an impact on the game with East Dorset.'

However, Guernsey got off to a bad start the following day and were 5-0 early on.

At half-time, the Sarnians made a couple of changes with Nena Bourgaize moving to GD and Lois Batiste providing fresh legs at WA. It took a few minutes for them to settle but they were soon chipping away at the lead and came close to pulling off an upset.

'Claire Queripel was captain for the weekend and she was instrumental in making sure everyone worked tirelessly,' said Grant-Yendell, who was almost faultless in her shooting along with Anna Trump.

'We forced a lot of turnovers in defence and really put them under pressure to the point when they started time-wasting because they were getting nervous. The last five minutes were nailbiting but we could have done with just a bit more time.'