Identical wins for Young Stars and Rabat

The National League continued on Sunday and once more those hockey enthusiasts who braved the bad weather were rewarded with a good number of goals.

Both games finished with an identical scoreline, with Hunters' Tower Young Stars beating Britannia Tours WH 4-0 and Rabat doing the same against Poiatti Qormi.

In the first game of the day, Young Stars notched their second consecutive victory while White Hart conceded a third defeat.

As if the heavy rain wasn't enough, White Hart suffered an early cold shower when barely two minutes into the game Edward Hughes smashed in a Magro cross from the right to put his side in the lead.

The half was evenly balanced as Borg Costanzi and Giancarlo Torpiano caused problems to the Young Stars defence. At the other end it was Hughes, Magro and Evans who tried to increase the score.

Five minutes from the break, Young Stars sealed the issue with two quick goals.

First, Mark Camilleri pushed in following a short corner and a minute later White Hart had barely recovered when they were caught on the counter and Bonello fired in number three from the edge of the dee.

White Hart tried their best to get back into the game but the entire second half was rather poor with both sides messing up a number of short corners. Young Stars got their fourth goal three minutes from time through Jonathan Ellul.

In the second game, both sides had a point to prove.

Champions Rabat Depiro wanted to show that their draw against Sliema was merely a glitch while Qormi were determined to put their defeat against Young Stars behind them.

As it turned out the game was tense but overall well played with the final result of 4-0 maybe not doing justice to Qormi's efforts.

As in the previous game, an early goal set the pattern.

Qormi's defence was caught napping and after Chircop had saved Vella's first hit at goal, it was Seychell who was first on the rebound before slotting in.

Thanks to the early goal Rabat could play their counter attacking game, with Perales, Vella, Josef Antonelli and Seychell always a constant threat.

In fact, after 22 minutes and in one such break, Antonelli was left unmarked and he had no difficulty in scoring for Rabat.

The second half saw Qormi pushing forward but attempts by Jonathan Borg, Chris Bugeja and Sandro Bartolo were blocked.

Rabat's counter breaks were a constant danger and 15 minutes into the half it was Radojevic who finished off one such move.

Qormi kept trying but to no avail and five minutes from time it was Shawn Falzon who sealed the score at 4-0.

Sunday will see two more games from the league, with Young Stars facing Sliema Hotsticks at 9 a.m. and White Hart the first team to conclude their first-round commitments when they face Rabat at 11 a.m.