It’ll be tight at the top once again

Yet captain Tiff Gervaise-Brazier feels it could go ‘either way’ against strong opposition such as Blaze and the new T&T Purple – a merger between Thunder and Titans.

The mighty Titans pushed Rezzers all the way in the last Winter League before the start of lockdown and, for many players, a seven-month hiatus.

This promises to be a largely domestic campaign due to Panthers’ voluntary exit from South League action – yet there is still much to aspire to.

‘Obviously, we would love to retain the title, and I absolutely believe that we can,’ Gervaise-Brazier said.

‘The league has been really competitive over the last two seasons and because it’s a long season, it could go either way.

‘You can drop points at any time.

‘I do think that the standard of the league play has increased over the last few years and there’s never really a clear winner on paper.

‘You never know how the season will play out, but we’re looking forward to getting back on court and a bit of normality.’

Rezzers’ first team will remain largely unchanged, aside from availability concerns over basketballers Verona Tomlin and Gemma Batiste.

They have good options from their two lower teams – Black and White – something they utilised well in a 2019-20 campaign where Gervaise-Brazier highlighted the performances of Keeleigh Le Tissier and Anna Trump.

‘[The squad] will be pretty much the same as last year – we’ve only named seven or eight players in our first team, but we’ve got the depth in the other two teams to play up,’ she added.

‘We’ve got a very young team in the Whites and an experienced team in the Blacks.’

The island U16 coach also commented on, with the age-group Panthers also deprived of off-island play, the development opportunities offered by the domestic ‘Prem’.

‘There’s a limit on the amount of times you can play up. That doesn’t really concern me much, as we have such a range of depth in the other teams that we can pull up different players every week and play different positions.

‘It would be good exposure for them, definitely, and a good bridge for them to go from U16 to seniors and get more experience playing with the seniors.’

Ahead of facing T&T, albeit their Green B team, on the opening league night, she added: ‘A team or B team, we won’t be complacent.’