Rezzers Green come up Trumps in Premier final

The netball stalwart helped Resolution IT Green triumph 49-30 over Blaze A in Saturday afternoon’s Deloitte Winter League Premier Division Cup final, thereby completing a personal quadruple in what she had earmarked as her last season at A team and inter-insular level.

Trump had also won the regular-season title with Rezzers Green, together with the Mixed League and a milestone veterans’ inter-insular victory.

‘It’s a really, really satisfying end to another great season,’ she said.

But Rezzers’ latest success, achieved during a multi-divisional finals day on Beau Sejour’s show court, put the spotlight on the team rather than one individual.

They needed a strong team performance to extinguish Blaze, who had overcome reigning champions Lightning Strike in the semi-final.

Rezzers turned over Blaze’s initial centre passes to net three goals before the first retaliation.

Both teams had showed signs of rust in the early stages.

Understandably so given they concluded their league seasons in February.

Zola Saunders’ side soon got on the scorecard and fought hard, though the Greens’ trusty circle defence of Abby McCracken and Gemma Batiste limited their progress and allowed them to take the quarter 10-6.

Several changes took place in the following minutes and Blaze brought on more fresh, young legs, leaving U19s covering C to GS.

But the purple-clad side were unable to stop a spell of Rezzers dominance, which included one remarkable run of seven goals on the bounce.

A 23-11 lead at half-time showed the game headed in a clear direction.

Rezzers then brought on a third different centre – former captain Tiff Gervaise-Brazier – together with continuing their rotation between Clare Henry, Verona Tomlin and an in-form Emma Sykes in the shooting circle.

But Blaze battled back in quarter three as their experienced stalwarts combined effectively with younger and newer faces, leaving their rivals to merely edge the quarter – 11-10.

By then the mountain was too high to climb, though, and Rezzers finished strongly to take the spoils.

‘I think it was brilliant,’ captain McCracken said of their performance.

‘We worked really hard. Our second quarter, we normally have a little dip, but it was really good today.

‘We used our squad really effectively and turned over really well throughout the whole court.’

This achievement topped off a near-unbeaten season for Rezzers, whose sole loss came to Lightning Strike in November.

‘We’ve used our youth to bring in this year and I just think we’ve played well and all our experience pays off as well,’ McCracken said.

Trump added: ‘We’ve got a lot of versatile players that can play literally anywhere on the court.

‘[U19] Evie Robinson has had a phenomenal season, both for Island and for the club.

‘Unfortunately we have people leaving us next year because they’re of the university age – so a bit of a change of the club I think.’

Trump also praised the ‘really good’ atmosphere of finals day and called the big court a ‘great experience’ for the younger players.

These younger players featured heavily in the lower-division matches that formed the bulk of finals day.

Although Lightning Strike’s title defence bid had failed in their semi-final, their C team, Storm, lifted the Division One Cup.

Lightning Storm overturned an early three-goal deficit against Liberte A to edge quarter one 11-10, then continuously pulled clear as they rattled the opposition with frequent scoring runs.

They ultimately triumphed 61-37.

Division Two’s play-offs concluded with a club match between Thunder Orange and White, which the former dominated 48-17.

In Division Three, Praxis R1 raced out the blocks – winning quarter one 9-1 – en route to a 31-14 victory over Liberte C.

A mixed league exhibition match showcased perfectly the competitiveness that can be found in this discipline.

The Green team closed a long-lived deficit on their Black rivals in the dying stages, scoring the last goal to make it a 24-all draw.