Holders Tarxien Rainbows easily disposed of a weak St Patrick side to head for the quarter final stages of the competition. Without any shadow of doubt Tarxien were worthy winners against inferior opposition, who are still winless at the bottom of the table.

The match was decided at the start of the second half when Tarxien scored three quick goals in the space of twelve minutes to put the issue beyond doubt. Once again St Patrick showed deficiencies in defence and completely lacked punch up front, making it rather easy for the Tarxien defence to hold on to their lead.

The match had a slow start with St Patrick showing the better ideas, even having a goal disallowed for an offside infringement. Slowly but surely Tarxien started to come to grips with their opponents with Simon Muscat and Simon Shead in splendid form.

On fifteen minutes Simon Shead’s effort went inches wide. On the other end St Patrick missed a glorious chance when Karl Micallef failed to connect to a Robert Cassar freekick.

On 25 minutes Tarxien went very close when an Angus Buhagiar scorcher slammed against the crossbar. On the half hour Simon Muscat made his way past a couple of Zabbar defenders but his shot just missed the target.

At the start of the second half Tarxien sealed the issue with three goals in the first twelve minutes. On 51 minutes Essien Mbong fired low into the net from the edge of the area following a Simon Muscat corner, which the St Patrick defence failed to clear.

Six minutes later Tarxien doubled the score when Omar Grech did all the spadework with some neat dribbling before passing to Simon Shead who first timed beautifully in the top corner of the net.

St Patrick’s worries was not over yet as Tarxien scored the third goal three minutes later when Simon Shead took full advantage of a defensive blunder and headed past Azzopardi.

Tarxien were now in full control of the match, even though St Patrick managed to score a consolation goal on 65 minutes when Allistair Buhagiar scored from close range with the Tarxien defence immobile.

The last minutes were very balanced with Tarxien easily defending their two-goal cushion to cruise to the quarter finals of the competition.