They must now win their final two matches – and increase their goals difference by 38 – to overtake reigning champions and table-toppers St Clement A on goal average.
By beating St Brelade 43-22 last night – a much larger margin than anticipated – they move above the westerners, who are now out of title contention, into second place with 47 points.
Convent need eight more points to match St Clement A’s points total – the Saints have no further matches to play – and if Convent can do that and improve their goal difference by 38 they will win on goal average.
Convent A and St Brelade meet again on Monday night, then Convent A meet their B side in the last match of the season.
Convent A’s team manager Linda Andrews described last night’s display as ‘awesome!’ ‘They were incredible, and they know exactly what they have to do to win this title back.’ Team captain Jane Le Feuvre said: ‘We knew St Brelade were gearing up to win this and Linda told us before the match that if we really wanted to win then we had to go out and show it.
They kept trying – we’d go ahead then they’d catch up, but we pulled away.
We have to do this again on Monday.’ Both teams were keyed up for last night’s encounter – and very determined.
That showed in the first quarter as they went goal for goal, with St Brelade GA Gill Kaye feeding perfectly-placed balls to GS Caroline Avery, but Convent were 9-7 ahead as they went into the second session.
Convent GK Lauren Devine started to outmanoeuvre the St Brelade shooters and Convent took advantage, and though some balls were wasted in attack, the lead stretched to 19-14.
Team changes were made in the third, B-team player Serena Guthrie coming in as WD for Convent A and making an immediate impact while the defence restricted St Brelade to only two goals in the quarter.
At 28-16 ahead the Convent’s confidence was sky-high, and they went on to amass their impressive total.
St Brelade will most certainly not let Convent have an easy win at their next meeting, but captain Sue Dougherty said: ‘We were lucky to get the point (for 50 per cent of goals scored) – they were just too strong.
After the third quarter it just wasn’t going to happen for us.
They are a young, fast team and at times we were just physically taken out – but that doesn’t detract from the fact that they played much better than us.
We weren’t good enough on the night.’ In the other matches St Clement B beat Accies A 49-11 in Division Ib and in Division II St Peter may well have wrecked St Lawrence B’s chances of the divisional title after they beat them 51-47.
Convent D beat St Saviour A 59-37 in the same division.
Division Ia PWDL>50%Pts St Clement A161303355 Convent A141103347 St Brelade A141004444 Convent B14806638 St Ouen A144010723
