First up tonight St Martin’s will be hoping to retain the Stranger Cup as they face Sylvans for the third time in a week.
St Martin’s have won both matches against the Westerners, 3-2 on Saturday in the Priaulx League and 2-0 in their Guernsey FA Cup quarter-final on Tuesday night.
‘We’re feeling good, we’ve had a good week of playing against Sylvans, even though we know that it’s not the same mentality and team that they might turn up with on the night for a cup final,’ said Saints head coach Ben Hunter.
‘I was really happy with how we played against them on Tuesday night. At the start of the second half we had a plan to come out and go at them and we did that in the first 10 minutes, got the two goals and then we were quite comfortable from then on really, and on Saturday we had a really good start where we had 25 minutes of them bombarding us with set pieces and stuff, but we managed it really well and defended really well.’
Sylvans head coach Dave Gilman said that, despite having been on the wrong side of two results against Saints already this week, there were some good moments from his side during the two closely-contested matches.
‘I think everyone’s looking forward to it, it’s always good to get to a final so we’ll give it our best go,’ he said.
‘It’s not ideal that we’re coming off the back of two defeats, to be honest, but they’ve been fairly closely contested games, so we’re hoping more things go our way in the next one.'
Tomorrow, Priaulx League champions North will face Jersey Combination Premiership winners Jersey Wanderers in the Upton.
‘Obviously winning the league has given everyone a huge confidence boost, so I think we’re ready to give a good account of ourselves,’ said head coach Charlie Le Prevost.
‘The Upton is obviously the pinnacle but, when we set out at the start of the season, our first goal was to win the league, which we’ve done, so anything from now is a bonus.’
Le Prevost feels his side are in a good place going into the CI Championship clash against a team they also played last summer
‘We actually have quite a good relationship with Jersey Wanderers and we played them pre-season, so it hasn’t been too long since we’ve played them. We know a little bit about them so I feel like we’re in quite a well-prepared position,’ he said.
Friday's Stranger Cup final at Victoria Park kicks off at 7.30pm and Saturday's Upton kicks off at 1pm at the Corbet Field.
