Alligators Cisk Lager 17

Stompers TGI Friday 39

There is no the holding current league champions at the moment, as they showed last Saturday in their fixture against Alligators.

Stompers have a very effective back line and Alligators wisely opted to play to their own strength in the pack. They worked well in the set scrums and even better in the mauls and rucks.

But there is no stopping the well-oiled machine that is the Stompers backs. They scored four tries in the first 20 minutes of the game. Their forte is that they pass with accuracy, run with speed and always have men up in support. Xuereb, Chris Busuttil

and particularly Malcolm Attard (a hat-trick) gave great performances.

For Alligators, Robin Parnis-England controlled his scum very shrewdly, Chris Pace fought hard all afternoon and the no.13 had a successful match , his efforts rewarded by scoring two tries. Their no.6 is outstanding, not only around the scrum at the break-up but also in open play. He was everywhere and but for his many tough covering tackles the points difference might well have been much greater.

Kavallieri Blue Label 103

Hibs Sharks Strongbow 0

It did not take Kavallieri more than two minutes of play to show us what their game-plan was for the afternoon. Nothing too complicated. It was to lay their hands on the ball, run like a bunch of happy buffaloes and bang it down over the Sharks goal line. And that is precisely what they did, with somewhat monotonous regularity, and so notched up 11 tries in the first half and six in the second.

Those figures by themselves make it sound as if Sharks put up little resistance. But that was not so. There were long periods of the game when the forwards pushed the opposition pack down to their 22 and held them there.

Kavallieri gave a fine display of rugby. Chris Vassallo, captain Daniel Grima and Mike Bonavia threw themselves into the melee and were active all over the field. All the forwards worked hard and gave a supply of quick ball to backs who made good use of it. Sean Doublesin's particular quality is his acceleration over ten metres which led to many of his six tries, while Steven Spiteri and Owen Caruana were always on hand to fight or support, as was needed.

What must be respected is the Shark’s scrum who valiantly struggled until the final whistle. It is why so many people are rooting for them to have their first taste of victory. The team just needs to put together all those multitude of skills which only experience brings. Rugby is about skill and guts: they have all the guts in the world; all they need now is a little more experience.

Malta Ladies XV 0

Hamburg St Pauli RFC 29

For players from Malta to take on such an experienced team from Germany - a country said to have over a million players - was always going to be a David and Goliath match. But Malta Ladies showed that the visitors' side was not so much better than ours but merely more experienced.

The Malta forwards played well. Marion Azzopardi played hard and her driving in the loose, along with Annamarie Vella, was one of the reasons that much of the game was played down on the German 22 m line.

The team neutralised many German attacks by their aggressive defence, Sarah Vella, Azzopardi, Colette Abela and Claire Portelli being very effective in their tackling; Ritienne Bondin put in an amazing covering tackle early in the game which saved a certain German try. The backs were active with some good runs by Brenda Cutajar and Dorianne Borg.

This was Malta Ladies’ only second game of XVs and their progress commands everyone’s admiration. We can obviously expect great things from them in the next few years.

The game brought out some enthusiastic supporters who saw a new team whose experience is, as yet, not great, but whose game-long enthusiasm knew no bounds. We are proud of them and they should be very proud of themselves.