As well as their two remaining group games, Saints have Tuesday night Priaulx League fixtures with Rangers and Rovers to prepare for in the next fortnight as well as a trip to Jersey for their Wheway Cup tie against St Paul’s slap bang in the middle of their busy spell, so it is no wonder that coach Ben Hunter emphasised the importance of starting their Stranger defence with back-to-back victories if at all possible.
‘If we win this game, that is us basically through to the semi finals and it would be nice to do it with a game to spare because we have got a lot of games coming up – five before the end of the month – so it would give us the chance to rotate the squad in the final group game against Rangers,’ he said.
‘North will not be an easy game, but by beating Sylvans we have a good platform going into it.
'We beat North last month [in the league] and when we were beaten by them earlier in the season I didn’t feel we deserved to lose that one, but a couple of mistakes proved costly.
‘There is not much between the sides, it’s just really a case of who is better on the day.’
Saints had to come from behind to beat Sylvans 2-1 last Friday in their opening group game, while at the same time North were beating Rangers 6-3 at the KGV.
‘I was really happy with the performance,’ said Hunter.
‘We changed our shape a little bit and we had a few players missing, but I was happy with us on the ball.
‘There are improvements to be made off the ball and it was frustrating to concede within a minute of us having a corner – they broke on us and we did not deal with it very well – but overall I thought we deserved the win.’
He added a word of praise for new signing Glenn Le Tissier, who scored the winner against Sylvans in only his second outing for the club.
‘Glenn has been good since he came in,’ said Hunter.
‘He has been getting up to speed with how we play and what we are asking of him – he has come in to do a job up front, create chances, hold the ball up and also take chances where he can, and he took his goal really well.’
St Martin’s will be without their other goalscorer from last weekend for the clash with North as Louis Hunter has returned to university at Loughborough.
Alex Ward has gone back to his studies in America, but they will welcome back a couple of regulars including the man who lifted the Stranger Cup last season, George Mason, who missed the Sylvans game as he was part of Guernsey’s medal-winning men’s squad at the Hampshire Cross-Country Championships in Southampton.
‘Our squad will be different for this game, but I would say stronger because we have both George Mason and George Goubert back, having been unavailable last weekend,’ said coach Hunter.
This weekend’s Stranger Cup Group A action begins tomorrow night when Rangers face Sylvans at Victoria Park, 7.30pm kick off. North versus St Martin’s kicks off at 5.30pm on Saturday at the same venue.
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