The Hunters’ tower took the runner-up spot in the Blue Label National Hockey League when they beat Sliema Hs on penalties in the play-off.

Despite being the better side on the day, The Hunters’ Tower made heavy weather of overcoming Sliema Hs. Their usually reliable short corners were erratic even though Luke Mallia, the Sliema Hs goalkeeper, was in great form and it was he who saved his team on several occasions.

To complicate matters for The Hunters’ Tower, who on the day had Ivan Magro and Charles Micallef missing through suspension, they found themselves a goal down at half-time.

In fact after 25 minutes they were caught out when Baldacchino ran from midfield and fed a good ball to Ray Bezzina who slipped the ball past Mizzi.

Sliema almost doubled the score at the start of the second half when from their first short corner of the day Cachia fluffed his chance following a good pass from Caruana Smith.

The Hunters’ Tower picked up their game again and in the 9th minute of the second half equalised as David Evans closed an exchange of passes at the top of the dee with a hit that beat Mallia. The Hunters’ Tower maintained the upper hand but failed to breach the Sliema Hs defence again and ten minutes from time they nearly came undone, when following a rather innocuous looking challenge on Cachia Sliema were awarded a penalty stroke.

Sliema’s penalty taking this season has been atrocious and this one was no exception as Caruana Smith saw his stroke saved by Mizzi. Despite the efforts from The Hunters’ Tower the game moved into extra time and the heat was now taking its toll.

The extra time was characterised by a couple of chances for The Hunters’ Tower and nothing much more. With neither side getting the ‘golden’ goal the matter had to be resolved by penalties.

The first two rounds of strokes saw the teams remain level at 2-2 as Hughes scored the third stroke for The Hunters’ Tower and Sliema’s Baldacchino flicked his stroke wide. The fourth taker for The Hunter’s Tower was Evans and Sliema’s Mallia saved. Caruana Smith could have put the Blues back on level terms but his stroke also went wide. This left Chris Attard with the chance to win it for his side and he didn’t fail.

Incidentally Sliema’s chance for some sort of revenge comes up on Sunday as the two sides meet again in the semi-finals of the KO competition.

This will be the fifth meeting between the two sides this season. In the League both sides registered a victory each with the third game ending in a draw. The fourth, Sunday’s play-off, was decided by penalties so the semi-final should be another close match.

The second semi-final (at 11am) will see Poiatti Qormi face champions and KO holders Rabat Depiro. On Sunday, Rabat brushed aside the challenge of Britannia Tours WH in the preliminary round with two goals in the first half from Josef Antonelli and Shaun Falzon.