Guernsey overcome nervous opening

Guernsey 38, Royal Navy 30

'INCONSISTENT is a good word to describe it' was Sonia Grant-Yendell's assessment of her side's performance indoors at Beau Sejour on Saturday. It was an honest and frank assessment, too, because at times the Sarnians produced moments of sublime netball when they turned defence into attack with fleeting grace and skill, but those instances were sporadic and there were frustrating periods when they surprisingly lacked cohesion.

The home side were particularly disjointed in the opening quarter although the Royal Navy deserved a great deal of credit for showing much more urgency and fire than their hosts.

In the attacking circle, GA Katherine Rackham and GS Kate William were on top form and the latter was particularly impressive with her long range shooting.

Even when the reliable Denise Bourgaize and Lorna Brown restricted her to efforts from distance, William maintained a superb success rate.

At the other end of court, Guernsey missed several chances in the first 15min. and found themselves trailing 8-14 by the end of the period.

Guernsey assistant coach Gill Queripel made a few alterations, with debutante Krystal Harford making way for young Kerri Brown in attack, Tanya Gibson being introduced at WD and Nena Bourgaize and Claire Queripel both changing position.

It did the trick and the gap began to narrow immediately as Grant-Yendell, having moved from GA to GS, found her radar.

By the end of the first half, the two teams were level once again at 18-all.

The Sarnians really clicked in the third and treated their supporters to a couple of wonderful passing moves.

The centre court trio were heavily involved while the Browns made vital contributions at their respective end of the court and Grant-Yendell, who by this time couldn't miss, finished things off.

The player-coach also contributed a magical moment of individual brilliance when she collected a rebound to the side of the post and slotted home a remarkable off-balance shot as she was about to step out of court.

Guernsey won the quarter 13-4 and there was to be no catching them.

But the Navy, for who Natalie Godfrey and Sasha Hall shone, never stopped competing throughout and that was emphasised by the spirit they showed in the final 15min.

They won the period 8-7 and could take many positives of their own from the match.

'I thought we played brilliantly when you consider last time we played Guernsey they beat us by a much bigger margin,' said the Navy captain Rackham. 'We won the first and last quarters and those were definitely our strongest.

'The coach made a few changes because our ultimate aim is to win the inter-services competition which is coming

up and so we used this game partly to try a few things.'

Grant-Yendell was satisfied, if not delighted at the final whistle.

'It was good in parts and bad in parts,' she said. 'We tried different line-ups and it was a bit ambitious, but we wanted to see how it worked.

'The changes Gill made definitely made a difference. In the first quarter their defence was very good, they put our shooters under pressure; we made unforced errors and turned the ball over too easily. When we made the changes, we upped the tempo; the flow of the game was faster and more to our liking.'

She admitted that at times going forward, Guernsey can get a bit carryied away with looking to 'showboat' and that the side looks much better when it does the simple things well.

But overall, the coach was just pleased to get a home win.

'We dug deep when it mattered and that was in the second and third quarters. The Navy made some changes for their own reasons; we saw much more of the ball and converted more of our goal chances.

'We can take a lot away from that game and the win consolidated our position in the league. We have got two away games left, against West Devon and East Devon, which we are hoping to come away from with victories,' Grant-Yendell said.