Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/649887
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 6 MARCH 2016 53 Sports RUGBY Falcons dominate Ladies Sevens League PHIL GIBBS Kavallieri v Falcons Falcons started the first game of the day in typically blustery conditions, looking the more dangerous of the two teams. Their tackling was aggressive in defence, and in attack they crisply switched the ball left and right, looking for a chink in the Kav- allieri defence. It duly came early in the first half after they had worked themselves downfield to the 22 metre line. Katka Vrbaka was tackled, cleverly won the ball back from the ruck and then broke two tackles before slipping the ball to Deb- orah Cutajar, who cut in from short range to score the first points. In the next attack, Falcons' Caroline Gafa, having one of her best games of the season, ran strongly from halfway to the 22 before being high tackled. From the penalty, Kavallieri lost a player to the sin bin when Laura Grima was yel- low carded for not retreating. They were then penalised for not releasing and, from the resulting penalty, Falcons put through a dinking grubber kick, but Marion Azzo- pardi was caught offside. From the pen- alty on the 5 metre line, Kavallieri's Maria Spiteri thoughtlessly kicked away precious possession, Falcons gathered it and shipped it along the line. Jayline Richard knocked on in the tackle and from the scrum, Vrbaka retrieved the ball while backpedalling before hitting Cutajar with a sharp pass, and she dived in for her second try. Azzopardi missed the conversion to leave the score at 10-0. Shortly after the kick-off, Kimberly Riolo was binned for a high tackle, but from the penalty, Kavallieri were pressured into giving away two consecutive penalties for playing the ball off their feet, the second of- fence drawing the yellow card from referee Ramage's pocket. As Abigail Attard left the field, Falcons capitalised on a quickly taken penalty and Francesca Bartolo crossed the try line unchallenged. Azzopardi was struggling with her accuracy in the strong wind, and she missed her third conversion attempt, bringing the first half to a close with the score 15-0 in Falcons favour. Falcons got off to a flyer in the second half, when the impressive Vrybaka scooped up a loose ball on the halfway line after Kavallieri's first attack broke down. She turned on the gas, and ran 50 metres to touch down, leaving three defenders in her wake. Azzopardi found her range for the first time with the conversion and Falcons drew ahead 22-0. Kavallieri won a penalty from the kick off, but Spiteri again kicked ahead when she would have been better off retaining pos- session, and Azzopardi gratefully fielded the kick, and ran it back to halfway, before picking out Vrybaka with a sharp pass to the left. She switched cleverly to the right and slung an inch-perfect pass to Caroline Gafa, who scorched down the wing, leaving the Kavallieri defence for dead. She cut inside to score under the posts and Azzopardi converted to move the score to 29-0. Falcons were not finished yet, how- ever, and when the kick-off was knocked on by Kavallieri, Vrybaka dug the ball out of the scrum and sent Azzopardi on a dart- ing run upfield. She found Beverie Sultana on her shoulder and timed her offload to perfection. Sultana powered over to touch down from 10 metres out, and Azzopardi slotted the kick over to leave the final score 36-0 to Falcons. Star player – Katka Vrybaka Referee – Sam Ramage Falcons v Overseas Falcons came up against stiffer opposi- tion in their second game of the day, when Overseas matched them with some fierce tackling from their defensive line, to- gether with aggressive running from both Sairita Cassar and Tessabella Sultana. In- deed, they looked the more likely to open the scoring when Sultana drove the ball forward to within range of the try line. A knock-on by Falcons brought a scrum in a handy position, but Vrybaka stole the ball from the back of the pack, and then sprint- ed 60 metres to score a fine individual try. The conversion ended the first half, with Falcons holding a slender 7-0 lead. Overseas got the second half off to a cracking start, when Tamsin Pace Decesare held on to the kick-off, and then ran over 70 metres to score a brilliant individual try, while the Falcons defence could only look on in disbelief. However, they soon regained their composure when Beverie Sultana stormed through the centre field defence before spinning the ball right to Azzopardi. She stumbled, but nimbly stayed on her feet, sold a clever dummy to the approach- ing defender and found the try line beck- oning. Her conversion moved the score to 14-5. Overseas gamely kept their heads up and tried to launch another assault from a penalty, but crucially knocked on. From the scrum, the ball went to ground, and Vrbaka showed her strength over the ball, winning possession and running down the left wing to score the final points of the game, and leave Falcons the victors at 19-5. Star player – Katka Vrybaka Referee – Celine Smith Overseas v Kavallieri In the final game of the day, Overseas proved too strong for a rather lacklustre Kavallieri team missing their playmaker Amanda Cassar, and deservedly won the game in some style. Kavallieri failed to take advantage when Sairita Cassar was sin- binned for a high tackle, knocked on sev- eral times and were penalised in their only promising attack. The first Overseas try came from Tessabella Sultana in the first half, when she powered 60 metres down the left wing to score. The second half saw three further tries for Overseas. The first came from the lively Wendy Pace, converted by Clara Castillo, and Pace also had a hand in the second when her slick inside pass opened the door for Claire Casha to score in the left corner. Sairita Cassar wrapped up the game with a lung-bursting 70 metre sprint down the right wing before finishing it off under the posts. Charlotte Evans converted to bring the game to an end 24-0. Star player – Tessabella Sultana Referee - Celine Smith Stompers too strong for Kavallieri MIKE TURNER NO fewer than seven yellow cards, a re- cord number, were doled out by the ref- eree but this was no bad ref lection on Mr O'Brien, rather on the players who were silly enough to make blatant in- fringements. In fact this was a good game to watch despite the cards upsetting the rhythm, as the Stompers very strong squad em- phasized that they were the team to beat. There is a pride and also an abundance of speed and skills in this side and it seems that the only team who can stand up to them this season will be Overseas. They went on the attack from the whistle to score a classic scrum, drive and along the back line by Caruana within about two minutes. Newcomer Gum was inf luential at scrum half, with strong breaks and good distribution to launch the accomplished and speedy backs, again and again. By contrast, al- though Kavallieri were superior in the set scrums where Bartolo dominated Spiteri, their backs were disjointed and slow thinking, though brave in the tack- le. The next Stompers try was converted by Gum and then Hepburn scored a classic f ly half try, beating three play- ers with pace change and swerve, again Gum converted. Although Kavallieri managed some attacks into Stompers' territory they never really looked like scoring. Back into attack, Stompers Cer- keta, who played his usual game of car- ries, charged over from close in to score the final try of the half, converted by Gum to bring the score up to 26-0. De- spite some good charges by Kavallieri's Borg and some lineout driving mauls, Kavallieri were unable to score and fin- ished 26 points behind at half time. Immediately after half time Kavalli- eri's Grech seemed to be badly hurt, but Physio Pauline Fenech brought some magic out of her bag to set him up again, as she does for the National Team. Both teams used towering kicks in the tricky cross wind, but Hepburns for Stompers were the more accurate and Kavallieri did not always deal with them well. Jeremy Debattista finished off a long Stompers attack, converted by Hepburn but Kavallieri fought back. At last they spent time on the Stompers line and were finally rewarded by Bedu Hanan beating three men to score, with his su- perb balance and strength, for a small man. Debierre was a strength for Kaval- lieri with his tackling and speed. Blyton had a Jekyl and Hyde game of errors and excellence. Stompers scored again af- ter a superb break by Debattista off the scrum base. Kavallieri scored again, but the Debattista brothers rounded off the scoring with a try each to reach 48-10. This season Stompers coach Busut- til has so many good players to choose from that he was sending on subs to give everyone a game, and every one of them was a good player. In particular, the newcomer Gum brings speed, ath- leticism and experience. In particular he passes and then runs round the back to appear again in the line and create an overlap. A good game to watch yet again de- spite the Yellow Cards. The other match was settled Overseas 15 Falcons 0.