IT wasn’t only the weather that gave Island sport a rough ride over the weekend as Jersey sides, in the main, succumbed to UK and CI opposition in vital encounters.

Some excellent performances went unrewarded on Saturday – St Paul’s footballers were knocked out of the Dorset Cup by Poole Borough, Jersey Rugby Club firsts were beaten by league leaders Guildford in London South Division II and Guernsey won the Ladies U17 hockey inter-insular 4-1 at Les Quennevais.

Things didn’t improve much yesterday, with Jersey RFC U18s crashing out of the Hampshire Cup 24-7 away to New Milton RFC and the Doug Tranter Cup semi-final being called off at St Peter.

The Island badminton squad provided most of the weekend sunshine, with the Division II table-toppers recording victories over Gloucestershire 2nds in Stroud on Saturday and Dorset 2nds in Poole yesterday, thus maintaining their great run in the national Inter-County championships Elsewhere it was a case of the rain or high winds winning the day, with all action in Coca-Cola Combination Division I wiped out.

Some sports people, however, revel in such conditions, with the Jersey Spartan Graeme Le Maistre cross-country championships getting under way at La Ferme, yesterday morning.

Jon Coote and Jo McGarry were the fastest man and lady, respectively, over the testing course.

And Aiden Dixon is the new CI bodyboard champion, as a heavy swell and stormy weather helped wave conditions for the event at Grève de Lecq on Saturday.