Team Bath eye return to success

Jess Garland's Team Bath are going for her third grand final win in four years.

Team Bath head coach Jess Garland says that having the right mix of experience and youth will help in Saturday's Superleague Grand Final in Coventry.

The 2006 and 2007 winners line up against a Mavericks side who are the defending champions.

"Collectively this year you've got senior players that have won it before," Garland told BBC Points West.

"But you've also got a lot of people who haven't won it so there's a big group effort to regain that trophy."

Team Bath, who won the first Superleague season in 2006 and successfully defended their title 12 months later going through both seasons unbeaten, have so far enjoyed another unbeaten campaign.

But they slipped up last year, losing to Mavericks in the play-off semi-finals when the majority of their squad were at the ANZ Championships. And Garland says memories of that defeat will act as a motivation.

"It will be great to put right the wrongs of last year and the disappointment," she said.

"People have asked me how much it hurt when we didn't win it last year.

"But, in fact, in some ways it hasn't because the players that were exposed last year to the competition, and in a lot of cases for the first time, have really come on this year.

"You've got the likes of Serena Guthrie, Stacey Francis and Eboni Beckford-Chambers now all fronting up as regular starting line-up players."

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Guthrie, a 19-year-old Geography student at Bath Spa University, insists the pressure is on Mavericks as the defending champions despite Team Bath's dominant form throughout the season.

Their 16-match unbeaten run, when they scored 979 points while conceding 579, included wins against third-placed Mavericks, 55-41 at home and 55-46 away.

Those matches, never mind the knock-out history between the sides, are enough evidence for Beckford-Chambers to know it will be an exciting contest.

"We're really revved up and hopefully we'll come away with a win," said Beckford-Chambers, who is juggling third-year law coursework commitments at Bristol University with preparations for the final.

"To go through a season undefeated and show our performance is getting better every single time we go on court is fantastic, but the job's not done yet and another win would end a perfect season.

"We've shown we have the spirit, determination and commitment to win this game so we've got to keep applying what we've been doing throughout the season, throw in a few tricks here and there and keep going."

Saturday's grand final is a repeat of the 2006 and 2007 finals, both of which were won by Team Bath who clinched the inaugural title 43-35 before successfully defending their crown with a 53-45 win 12 months later.