MAY PEN, Clarendon — The coach believes they have the potential to go all the way in this season’s ISSA/Digicel Rural Area Senior League netball competition. But if they are to achieve such a feat they will have to do it the hard way. And this season, there are no harder semi-final opponents than Holmwood Technical – the defending All-island champions.

While acknowledging that the mountainous task, Simone Smith said her Manchester High players will be ready for the challenge when they take on Holmwood in Tuesday’s big Manchester derby, scheduled for the Clarendon Park courts.

True, Titchfield High did give Holmwood a scare in their second-round group game, but at the moment Manchester are the opponents who fit the mould of a “stronger” team. If nothing else, the statistics from their previous six outings say so. They won those six games scoring an average of 50 goals – including a 55-20 quarter-final victory over former champions Edwin Allen.

Still, Smith is quite aware of the challenge that awaits her players against the defending champions. “This will be a tough game,” she admitted last week.

Her seniors won’t be the only ones facing an uphill challenge. The juniors have their work cut out for them in their semi-final clash against the powerful Knox College team which is looking to improve on last season’s third place finish in the Under-16 competition.

So far, Knox – based in Spalding, Clarendon – have ridden every challenge put in front of them with relative ease. Grouped with Denbigh High, last season’s second-placed finishers; Edwin Allen, Charlemont, Oracabessa and Yallahs in the second round, they finished with a 100 per cent win record to advance to the quarter-finals where they met the defending champions, St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS). But that, too, proved to be a just another tick in the win column, as they triumphed 31-23.

While the other Junior League quarter-final tie could turn into a one-sided affair, in favour of Denbigh High, coach Christine Bartley is taking nothing for granted. Last week, after overcoming May Day High in the quarters, she was preparing for a date with Holmwood Technical only to be presented with the news that Herbert Morrison Technical, and not the Manchester school, will be their semi-final opponents.

Like the other fans at Clarendon Park, Bartley was stunned. The Herbert Morrison tie was supposed to be a routine victory for Holmwood but, clearly, the St James school had other ideas – beating their central Jamaica opponents 32-30.

She is not one to dismiss her opponents prematurely. “We haven’t seen them, but while we are confident in our abilities, we are not taking any team lightly. They beat Holmwood, which means they must have something about them,” she noted.

So far this season, the Portland-based Titchfield are the only team to have pushed defending champions Holmwood to the limit. The narrow 31-32 defeat to Holmwood on November 12 was greeted not as a setback by their admirers, but as a sign of things to come in the latter stages of the competition.

In fact, following that game, a respected figure in netball circles commented that Titchfield, should they reach the final, will win it all. That expectation increased following their impressive 41-27 quarter-final victory over Bishop Gibson High. But Bartley said they will be prepared. “We usually play them in the group stage, so we know that Titchfield is a good team. But we know what they have to offer. We will be ready,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

Denbigh themselves have shown championship quality this season. In fact, only Holmwood have been more rampant than they have been, with the Clarendon school scoring over 300 goals in six games since the start of the second-round. And so comfortable were they against STETHS in the quarter-final – previously expected to be a keen affair – they even used a number of fringe players for the last quarter of that game, eventually winning 54-24.

But of course, that’s in the past. Titchfield are the present and they offer a different challenge from a STETHS team which their coach, Janice Burke, admitted was “very short on fitness.”

Junior League line-up:

Knox College v Manchester High; Denbigh High v Herbert Morrison Technical

Senior League line-up:

Holmwood Technical v Manchester High; Denbigh High v Titchfield High

All games, set to begin with the juniors at 10:30 am, are scheduled for Clarendon Park.