Champs turn attention to winning back the ‘Upton’
CLUB spirit has been key to Colombians retaining their title this season says captain Zak Damarell.
The reigning champions ensured that they will hold onto the crown for another year with their 9-0 win over Yobbos on Saturday, despite it being another match where they were without a couple of their Guernsey players.
This time it was Sam Dawes and Andrew Dawson-Ball missing from their line-up, but others stepped up to the plate with Matt Dorey, Max Eyton Jones and Hamish Glass (two) among the scorers along with the more familiar names of Damarell (two), Adam Cox and TJ Ozanne (two).
‘Saturday was another match where we were missing some key players, as we have done in a lot of the games this season, and we showed great team spirit to ensure that we got ourselves over the line in this game, as we have done all season,’ said Damarell.
The win was Colombians’ 12th out of 13 league games so far this season and gave them an unassailable lead at the top of the table ahead of nearest rivals Indies.
‘The key to our season has been the massive team effort. We had a small first team and have required our second team to step up and play in the majority if not all of our games this year and they have performed exceptionally well,’ Damarell said.
‘I think this shows the great team spirit that we have.
‘Special mentions to our defence for ensuring that we had a solid base to attack from, especially DB [Dawson-Ball] for being excellent in man-marking Steve Waldrom against Indies and Morgan Harries against Casuals, Sam [Dawes] for adding a lot more goals to his game this season and Jake [Le Marchant] for making key saves to keep us in games.’
The yellows have now completed a domestic double, having won the men’s knockout last month, and they have the Channel Islands title in their sights once again.
At the start of the season Colombians lost the 2018 ‘Upton’ to OV Convicts by a single goal in Jersey, so regaining that trophy is their big goal.
‘Our main aim now is to win the Upton,’ Damarell said.
‘We were disappointed with the result at the beginning of the season. We don’t think we showed our true colours and want to rectify this.’
