But he was also shocked by the partisan antics of the Sarnian crowd and officials.
‘All our players were all brilliant,’ said coach Rick Blakemore before picking out match-winner Duncan Prince, plus Rob Honey and Chris Byrne for special mention.
Guernsey were 16 points ahead in the third quarter of their home clash and seemingly cruising to victory.
But battling Jersey fought back to snatch victory by a single point as MVP Prince delivered the killer blow to devastate the Sarnians with less than a second left on the clock.
It was the first time that Jersey’s men’s team have won in Guernsey since 1991 and their second victory on the trot over the old enemy after another nail-biting, three-point, win the year before.
All that after Jersey were hammered by a 46-point margin in 2003.
Hautlieu teacher Blakemore, an ex National League player and assistant coach with Doncaster, has got to take the lion’s share of the credit for turning round the Island’s fortunes after a little over a year in the job.
‘All I’ve done is introduced different training techniques,’ he said.
‘The attitude and the commitment has always been there but we were tactically naive.
I’ve introduced set plays for offence and defence just like you would at soccer and now they are mentally and physically stronger.’ But Blakemore was amazed at the antics of the partisan Guernsey crowd – and officials.
Before the match started Jersey were snubbed as the Sarnian players were introduced one by one as they ran onto the court under a spotlight .
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and Jersey were made to stand on the sidelines in the darkness.
But it was a ploy which backfired as Blakemore took his men off court and outside to fire them up.
‘I gave them a bit of a pep talk,’ he said .
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‘it was very brief! But they were really motivated when we went back.
‘I’ve never seen such a noisy crowd,’ he said.
‘They were going absolutely crazy: the only time they shut up was at the end when we were a point up.
And at the end they were throwing water bottles at their players.
‘But it’s good that the inter-insulars are now proper battles and good games of basketball: it’s got to be good for the game over here.’ Now the Jersey side is heading for the tournament in Gibraltar which is being played at the same time as the Island Games – the sport was excluded from the Games in Shetland in July.
‘In the last Island Games in Guernsey we came last – we got beat by everybody,’ said Blakemore.
‘This time we should do much better.
We’re not going to beat the big boys like the Caymans and Rhodes but we hope we’ll be able to compete with everyone else.’
