After missing out on a South Division Three berth at the qualifying tournament in May, the representative squad got the lucky break they needed when another team that missed out, Sussex’s CD Phoenix, began contacting others with the idea of setting up a development league.
Guernsey director of netball Sally Carns and her squad did not need asking twice.
‘We snapped it up – we took the opportunity,’ she said.
This development league will be the senior Panthers’ first regional campaign of any kind since the abandonment of the 2019-20 Division Three season due to Covid.
The league will have Panthers playing seven other teams from the region, starting against East Sussex Mavericks on Saturday 11 October.
Unlike previous league experiences, matches will be played as double-headers on consecutive days against the same club.
Guernsey will also only have away fixtures.
The aim is to make the grade at next season’s qualifying tournament, which Carns is not taking for granted.
‘It’s notoriously difficult to get in the South leagues once you’re out of them,’ she added.
Reflecting on their failure to qualify this year, she added: ‘We missed out by a couple of goals on each game.
‘There was a bit of disappointment. We had used it as a benchmark-making exercise to see if we were ready for regionals.’
Although they faced Phoenix and Trinity at the qualifiers, most of the teams in the league will be unfamiliar.
Not that this is a bad thing necessarily.
Given that most of the Guernsey players’ matches are against familiar faces, the head coach believes that ‘there’s a bit of an unknown, but we need that unknown’.
‘It’s a really good thing we don’t know everything about them.’
Carns now has two squads training for representative action – performance and development.
But she reports a ‘really good’ take-up among the players, with U19s also positioned to take up the opportunity after missing out on their own regional age-group league.
‘All the girls are really excited about it.
‘We’ve got seven weekends over five months and it’s just a really good opportunity.’
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