JERSEY’S three netball league champions made it an Upton whitewash on Sunday as they all defeated their Guernsey opposition in this year’s inter-island club netball matches.

Played at FB fields, Jersey’s Deutsche Bank Winter League Division I champions Convent A pulled off a classy 46-26 win over rivals Nerine A while Division II winners St Ouen B battled it out in a close match with Nerine D to lift the trophy following a 38-31 victory.

However, it was Division III champions St Brelade B who set the tone for the day with a 39-27 win over Guernsey’s Heritage II team.

St Brelade’s captain Karen Harper was pleased with her team’s performance and felt they were in control of the match after stretching to a lead in the first quarter.

‘We started well and had a good game,’ she said.

‘We’re now looking forward to the higher standard of netball and the challenge of Division II next season.’ A tight game then ensued between St Ouen B and Nerine D that left the scores tied going into the final quarter.

And it was St Ouen B who continued to battle and kept their nerve, in fact, stretching to a lead in the final 15 minutes for a 38-31 victory.

Coach Maureen Cox said: ‘It was an excellent win, the team worked really, really hard and conserved their energy in the last quarter playing some longer balls but I think it was our shooting which gave us the edge – we’ve now got a good challenge ahead of us next season.’ Convent A then took on Nerine A in the final match of the day and the top flight Island champions took control at the start of the fast-paced game and went on to dominate the match with impressive style.

It really was a lesson in netball from the Convent side as their fluent display of accurate passing and movement combined with their hard work and commitment to increase the score line paid dividends as they finished the first quarter with a 15-6 lead.

Impossible to fault anyone, the shooters were netting goals with confidence and ease, the defence made it difficult for Nerine and the central players were the link between the two – while all three areas were showing great athleticism to consistently intercept from Nerine to keep the game in Convent’s favour.

With a final score line of 46-26, Convent completed a hat-trick of Upton victories to take the treble this season and coach Linda Andrews agreed it was an excellent team performance.

‘It’s lovely to finish off the season like this, there were so many positive and brilliant things.

The girls all worked so hard and for them to put it all together in a game like this is brilliant,’ she commented.

While Nerine coach Gill Quéripel said: ‘We were without five of our first team today, one is on holiday and some are playing in the National Schools Basketball finals so we did quite well.

We kept in it and kept plugging away.

‘Convent played really well and have some nice young players and I was very impressed with the goalkeeper Lauren Devine – they deserved the win and were by far the better team.’