Superior Greens make sure with early goals

Dingli Swallows 0
Floriana 3
Caruana 11; Darmanin 14, 25

Three goals in the opening 25 minutes made things easy for Floriana who were always in control and rarely gave Division One side Dingli Swallows time to settle on the ball in their FA Trophy first round encounter.

Floriana's early flurry settled the issue as Zoran Popovic's Premier League high-fliers tore the Swallows apart.

To their credit, Dingli, under the guidance of Jesmond Zammit, never resorted to destructive tactics but there was no way they could have survived the Greens' onslaught.

Floriana, who had Ryan Darmanin, Christian Cassar, Clyde Camoin and Luke Agius in fine form, will now play St Patrick in the second round.

Floriana took to the match without Dejan Maksic who was replaced by young Glenn Zammit in goal.

They immediately set out to put their minds at rest and laid siege on Dingli's defence right from the outset.

The Greens opened the scoring after 11 minutes when Caruana headed firmly home from a Duncan Pisani corner.

Three minutes later, Darmanin placed the ball into the net at the far post from an Agius cross and on 24 minutes, the lanky Floriana striker all but sealed the issue with an acrobatic shot from an inch-perfect Camoin service.

Floriana continued to press forward and could have easily added to their tally.

Three minutes into the second half, Floriana's Orosco Anonam was denied by a fine Jeffrey Farrugia save in the Dingli goal.

Then, Camoin powered his way past two defenders but his shot rolled inches wide of goal.

Late on, Argentine Pablo Doffo's sizzler from the distance rattled the Dingli post.

Dingli
J. Farrugia, R. Mintoff, C. Caruana ('65 C. Azzopardi), R. Spiteri, K. Formosa, V. Fiteni, C. Muscat, J. Agius, J. Cachia, E. Farrugia ('65 E. Casha), U. Anywanna ('46 M. Galea).

Floriana
G. Zammit, D. Pisani, C. Camoin, J. Briffa, J. Borg ('83 D. Zarb), P. Doffo, L. Agius, O. Anonam ('72 O. Bugeja), C. Caruana ('52 A. Madzar), R. Darmanin, S. Eboh.

Referee: Anton Zammit.

Yellow card: Agius (D).