Panthers fall away as changes fail to work
SAFFERY PANTHERS made a valiant start but had to be content with a ‘better’ loss away at Weston Park Blades Two.
Guernsey stayed on level terms against their Netball South rivals for the first two quarters and it was only later on that the floodgates burst open and they slipped to a 53-33 loss.
Although an improvement on the previous week’s 35-goal deficit against Sussex NRG Pumas, who now top the Division Three league table, this wasn’t quite the result the Panthers desired in the second match of the season.
The attacking duo of Steph Batiste and Donna Brehaut made their mark initially and good play throughout the court ensured that the Panthers held the advantage at 15min.,12-11.
The next quarter was slightly further off the mark and Weston Park worked up a small advantage of 24-21, still not entirely out of reach for the day-trippers.
But a period of unfruitful changes and few goals for the weary Panthers shackled them with a less appetising 27-38 scoreline and the outcome was already very apparent.
It was a bittersweet game in the eyes of team manager Amber Stables, who watched the team build on last week’s trouncing but has been left eagerly hoping for third-timer’s luck against Rushmoor Two on 14 October.
‘Lots of things went well and lots of other things didn’t go our way, decisions weren’t going our way and at the day it was just a very strong team we were playing against,’ said Stables.
‘We were leading and we did have a really good first half, but many of the changes that we had made didn’t quite work for us this week. The opposition were sound and kind of ran away with it – the first two [of the season] were going to be our harder games so hopefully we can close it now after that.’
