The teams travelled to Aldershot where the Seniors beat the Army side 53-41 in their English Counties Division IV match and the U16s beat a Sussex side 52-35 in a friendly.
Yesterday’s two league matches were against Cambridgeshire who were beaten 50-38 by the Seniors and 52-35 by the Jersey U16s, who play in U16s Division IV.
‘I was pleased with both teams, but especially the U16s because there were only two regulars in the side, the rest a mix of players from as young as U13,’ said coach Linda Andrews.
‘We’ve got the U14 Nationals in a couple of weeks and some of the girls in the squad haven’t played English netball yet, so they benefited from the experience.’ ‘Saturday’s senior game was very tough and very physical.
I wasn’t there to see it – obviously they don’t need me there! – because I couldn’t get there on the Saturday.’ She explained that the match against the Army was due to have been a ‘home’ fixture, which the Jersey girls play in Crawley, but the Army were apparently unable to organise travel plans, so Jersey had to travel to Aldershot instead, and this was only confirmed on Thursday.
Regarding the impending reorganisation of the league set-up, Andrews said that the England Netball blueprint has arrived in Jersey with the various planned changes set out, and that Jersey has responded with their comments.
‘The big meeting about it is in June and I’m struggling to get the point across to the authorities, that we’ll have to travel at least 12 times in the season, for the away games, while the other counties only have to travel to Jersey once.
We can’t be expected to travel when it’s our home game as well.
Even if we manage to get the cheapest of the cheap flights it’ll cost each girl around £1,000.
They seem to forget we don’t get any funding from the England set-up.’ Squads: Senior – Laura Beeston, Sophie Holmes, Cali Bushell, Hayley Miller, Georgia Hickey, Serena Guthrie, Lauren Devine.
U16 – Emma Carré, Lynsey Pitman, Alex Austin, Lisa Luce, Jacy Brown, Nicole Goddard, Steph Le Ruez, Josie Le Masurier, Amy Cox.
