The Priaulx League champions were beaten 3-1 by Jersey Wanderers in the CI club championship showdown, but they still have the chance of completing a domestic double as they face Rovers Thirds in the semi-final of the cup on Friday evening at Victoria Park, 7.30pm kick off.
‘The lads are not silly, they know there’s more silverware to play for,’ said North head coach Charlie Le Prevost.
‘We want to finish the season on a strong footing. They’re going to be disappointed [with the Upton result], but we shouldn’t have to pick ourselves back up and go on to try and win the FA Cup.’
Le Prevost admitted that after a goalless first half against Wanderers, the chocolate-and-blues were unable to go through the gears as they would have wanted in the second half of the Upton, which was delayed and moved to Northfield after the heavy morning rain left the Corbet Field unplayable.
‘The message before the game was to be well in the game after half-an-hour and 45 minutes, which we were – and that was job done because quite often we’ve played against teams who have been out of sight, 3-0 maybe, at half-time, and that wasn’t the case,’ he said.
‘But the message was in the second half, we could probably go on and play a bit more and enjoy the ball a bit more, which we probably didn’t do to the amount we wanted.’
Wanderers manager Chris Gill revealed that his side did not come under the pressure they were expecting from the Guernsey champions.
‘We came into this game more anticipating that North would come at us and we’d be sitting in a low block, a little bit more of a low block anyway, and then we use our threat on the counter,’ he said.
‘But I think, probably apart from the last 10 minutes that was quite erratic, we were on the front foot.
‘The boys have been excellent, really excellent. It’s Wanderers’ first Upton in 37 years, and that's too long for a club like Jersey Wanderers.’
The first of the Guernsey FA Cup semi-finals is tonight as St Martin’s take on Elizabeth College at Victoria Park, 7.45pm kick off.
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