Damien Neill's national team yesterday produced a perfect response to last week's disappointing defeat at home to Germany when they beat Serbia and Montenegro 16-3 in another World Cup 2007 third qualifying round match.

Rohan Spiteri was the team's protagonist in Pancevo, north of the country, as the talented flyhalf kicked home 11 points - three penalties and a conversion. First-half substitute James Sinalson scored the only try of the match.

Neill gave a debut to Guy Kennedy. The Australia-based player of Maltese descent had a fantastic match as he teamed up with Simon Micallef and constantly tormented the Serbian defence with his powerful runs.

"I'm really proud of the players," Neill told The Sunday Times from Pancevo yesterday.

"We played a cracking match. Our attacking plan was simply superb and we had eight to 10 opportunities to score. That was certainly a great comeback from the team following our previous negative result at home.

"I was particularly pleased with the performance of the new players, Guy Kennedy and Simon Micallef. They certainly did well and took their opportunity with both hands... I'm sure we'll see more of them in future."

This was Malta's first win in Group B and the team has now joined Germany, Croatia and Belgium who all have one victory so far. Germany and Belgium have a game in hand with the Germans facing the Serbs at Heidelberg next Saturday.

Serbia, who had lost their opening match away to Croatia 26-19 in Split last month, are bottom of the group with no points from two matches.

The national team will play their final two matches of the World Cup campaign next year - H vs Croatia (April 15) and A vs Belgium (April 22).

Malta: K. Mason (I. Borda), J. Ramage (H. Collins), T. Webb, L. Watts, C. Vassallo, G. Kennedy, S. Kempster, D. St George, J. Dimond (M. Mirabelli), R. Spiteri 11, D. Busuttil (J. Sinalson 5), T. Watts, J. Caruana, S. Micallef, J. Sultana.

Test Match (in Cardiff): Wales vs New Zealand 3-41.