Malta coach Damien Neill is eyeing a second consecutive victory on Saturday as his boys face Lithuania at the Hibernians Stadium at 2pm.

The atmosphere in the squad cannot be better at present after last Saturday’s impressive 28-0 drubbing of Latvia on their own soil.

However, half of the players are still being treated for injuries and have missed some training sessions. “I hope they will all be declared fit to play on Saturday,” said Neill yesterday.

The coach said he was very pleased with his side’s performance in Latvia. “It was a fine performance from start to finish. We dominated and continuously broke their defensive lines. It was a massive win for us in view of Saturday’s clash against Lithuania,” he said.

Neill went on to say that he would like to see his boys carry that performance into next Saturday’s match. “It was a real pity that it did not happen on home soil in front of our supporters,” added Neill.

The Malta coach is aware of Lithuania’s potential. He said: “We are well aware that Lithuania hold the world record unbeaten run and rank 39th in the IRB rankings. Furthermore, several of their players are professionals in the Russian league and the majority are army athletes, so we have to be at our very best.”

MRFU president Martin Galea told reporters that Malta will be facing Lithuania at the back of a great win in Latvia. “It was a very important win for us. Latvia are a strong side, but we did well to take our revenge for what had happened in the Malta match and the coach and the team must be congratulated after such a great performance,” he said.

Galea explained that Malta would like to earn promotion, but added: “We do not possess that level yet. It will be very hard for us. At present we are in Division II A with Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden. We really need to stay there. In fact, our aim is to avoid the drop. We have now gone up the ranking list to 46th in the world, and that is already a big achievement for such a small country, also being ranked ahead of much larger countries such as Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria and Austria, among others.”

Of course, on Saturday, Malta will need the support of the local fans, led by the South End Core, in the hope of achieving another great win.

Team manager Danny Sacco said it was also a pity that the MRFU did not yet have its own stadium. “The Hibs Ground is in perfect condition, but when it rains, as was the case earlier this week, we had to continue our training at the Marsa grounds. If we had our own pitch, it would save us a lot of work and would be much less expensive,” he said.

Malta squad

The players forming part of the Malta squad for Saturday’s clash against Lithuania are:

Ian Borda, Nathan Gatt, Tom Pace Moore, Clayton Cassar, Mike Bonavia, Max Galea, Jos Howlands, Oliver Sacco, Alister Livesey, Harry Collins, Kyle Mason, Mark Davey, Darren Deguara, Tom Holloway, Rob Holloway, Dominic Busuttil, James Kirk, James O’Brian, Toby Quarandon, Vince Stivala, Matt