Guernsey Press

In the land of the giants

Nerine Trust 31, Evesham Ladies 41 ALL the best training in the world, unwavering commitment and a fine run of form sometimes still cannot be enough to overcome natural advantages.

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Nerine Trust 31, Evesham Ladies 41

ALL the best training in the world, unwavering commitment and a fine run of form sometimes still cannot be enough to overcome natural advantages. When Evesham Ladies lined up against Nerine Trust at Beau Sejour, two things were very obvious, and they were standing at either end of the court.

The visiting shooter, Rachel Hill, and goal keeper, her sister, Breta, were huge. Both players were well over six feet tall, in the shooter's case, probably by four inches.

Which made Nerine's Lorna Brown's and Sonia Grant-Yendell's tasks incredibly difficult.

Great credit to them, and to the rest of the squad, the red-and-blacks never gave up pushing forward.

However, it was not quite enough. Down by eight in the first and nine early in the third, Nerine pulled back steadily and two minutes into the final quarter the deficit had been cut to just two.

That was as close as they would get and Evesham pulled away thanks to a run of five unanswered goals to make the final score a little harsh on the home side.

'A big problem is the lack of competition at this level,' said Nerine coach Gill Queripel.

'The last time we played at this level was a month ago, but Evesham played this standard only a week ago. They are used to competing at a high standard.

'We were well down and pulled right back but just couldn't get level with them. It was so frustrating that our shots were not going in.

A quick shuffle of personnel between the first and second quarters and then again at half time saw Nena Bourgaize eventually in the GA bib.

Her link play with Grant-Yendell - who found her range superbly in the third and hit some fine shots - drew appreciative comments from the visiting coach, Steve McLeod.

'When the two were passing and moving in the third and especially the fourth I thought Nerine could force their way back into the match,' he said.

'We let Nerine back in when we lost our shape. We did not have our first-choice C, WA or WD on court today and our lack or experience sometimes gave our opponents a chance.

As a touch of tiredness crept in, Nerine allowed possession to slip away at a couple of crucial times and the well-drilled Evesham defended tightly before slickly moving the ball up court to the shooting machine Hill.

'We threw some silly passes away, but we never gave up fighting. It was a very hard game, but they were very clean. Probably, if we had not missed so many shots, it would have been much closer,' said Queripel.

Their win put Evesham in with a chance of promotion: they need to beat Just Ahead in their last match. Nerine should be safe in the division.

Their next NCL match is an away trip to Gateshead, as Queripel pointed out, a long way to travel for just an hour's netball.

'We're having to fly to Manchester and drive up, which could take us four hours or more. We've asked for a 4pm start so we have bit of time to get our legs going again.'

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