Guernsey inflict whitewash
GUERNSEY’S badminton players flew across the water and held out a long, firm arm on Saturday to deny Jersey any hope of getting anywhere near the Gilson Cup.
The 2019 inter-insular, used by both teams as a late push for Island Games selection, finished 30-0 at the New Gilson Hall, with the Sarnians losing just one set from 61 played against a home team in transition.
As far as one-sided fixtures go, you would be hard-pressed to find a more convincing example than this, but the Caesareans finished holding muted hope for the future while a Guernsey representative whispered of a possible shift to ‘Guernsey-born players only’ from next year to level the playing field.
Former Guernsey badminton development officer Paul Le Tocq said: ‘We’re almost to the point where we’ll say “we’ll only take home grown Islanders”, like rugby have done for the Siam Cup.
‘We don’t want to make Jersey feel bad … it’s more about wanting to re-ignite the edge and if we went with local players we would have to mix it up a bit, like Jersey did today.
‘We’ve got our own issues back home, but we’re maybe just a couple of steps ahead of Jersey. This could bring a bit of competition back into it. The last thing we want to do is come here, beat the juniors and them get disheartened.
‘I would love to see Jersey come back and be stronger. They’re young … it will take four or five years but they just need to stick with it.’
More in Monday's Guernsey Press.
