ONE of the best prepared Guernsey teams for the Island Games has to be the basketball outfit. Under the leadership of new player-coach Jeff Stuart, who is the College of Further Education’s sports lecturer, the squad is currently spending more than 10 hours a week getting ready for the Rhodes Games.
‘To be honest, I don’t know [what the other sports are doing] but we are very prepared. We’re not leaving anything to chance like the mental, physical and team aspect,’ said Stuart.
‘We’ve been hitting the college gym four times a week in the mornings along with some shoot-arounds and then we’ve got some team meetings and a couple of two or three-hour training sessions a week as well,’ said Stuart.
‘They’ve also been doing stuff by themselves. They are very professional about it.
‘They are working really hard and it seems to be a whole new approach for them. They are really focused and we’re getting some really productive training sessions which is great.’
Guernsey’s group in Rhodes will see them take on Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Menorca and the old enemy, Jersey. Stuart has meticulously planned his squad’s movements during the week.
‘We’ve put together an itinerary that involves our games, training, the team meetings, the rest periods, going to watch the Guernsey girls play and scouting matches where we’ll watch the other teams play,’ he said.
‘There’ll be down time as well, but I think it’s important that we get a good team ethic going which we’ve been working towards.’
Another part of the team’s preparation for the Games was a recent trip to the UK where they played three Manchester Area Basketball League teams in one day.
Firstly, they beat Bury 86-77 before staying on court to take on Oxford Phoenix.
The greens lost that match 91-84 and they also tasted an 88-80 defeat in their last game against Stockport, but Stuart was delighted with the efforts from his side.
‘We won the first game, but we were then flat and the travelling hit us in the second game,’ said Stuart.
‘We beat Bury by 11 points and we lost to Oxford Phoenix and then played Stockport who are the league-and-cup double winners. We played really well against them but they are a tough outfit and we lost by eight.
‘The games went really well and it was interesting. Some of our players haven’t played against different opposition for a number of years since the last Games [when the sport was played - 2003].
‘And people equipped their games to it well but the travelling and schedule were tough. Three games in a row is a tough ask for any team.’
The island side have also secured sponsorship for Rhodes from Collas Day Advocates and the law firm have agreed to support them until the following Island Games.
Plans are afoot for an invitational tournament in September and October that will see top teams from the UK come to the island.
Stuart is also hopeful that the support could see them feature in the Southern Coast League.
Article posted on 15th June, 2007 - 12.00am
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