Rabat beat White Hart in Super Cup Final
Qormi start with a flourish
The 2009-10 hockey season got underway at Corradino last weekend. Two matches were played - the Super Cup between Rabat Depiro and Laferla Insurance White Hart, and the opening match from the Challenge Cup, Young Stars vs Qormi HC.
In the Super Cup contest Rabat got the better of White Hart by the odd goal in five.
White Hart could not have had a better start with a goal by Paul Torpiano on eight minutes. He beat Azzopardi in goal with an angled hit after having received from David Agius.
Rabat retaliated with a series of attacks but had to wait till the 26th minute to level the score through an opportunistic goal by Mark Bugeja. A minute later White Hart again took the lead when Luke Borg Costanzi hit in from the top of the D.
On resumption, White Hart had two occasions to go further ahead.
First, it was Agius who hit just wide from a tight angle after having rounded Azzopardi and then, a minute later, Tua again went past Azzopardi but was tackled in time just before concluding.
For these two misses White Hart paid dearly.
On 40 minutes, Rabat equalised again through Bugeja, who concluded a fine move between Kevin Micallef and Josef Antonelli.
The game was now swinging from one end to the other with Rabat always showing more strength and discipline in their attacks.
With eight minutes to go, Antonelli pounced on a loose ball and dribbled his way past three defenders before setting up Michael Galea at the far post to pot in the winner.
Keeper in form
In the second match of the day, Qormi beat Young Stars 2-0, with a goal in each half.
Qormi could have won by a bigger margin had it not been for some splendid goalkeeping by Waylin Abdilla. However, he was beaten on 30 minutes by Jonathan Borg.
On 51 minutes, and against the run of play, Luke Busuttil Leaver had a golden opportunity to equalise but did not manage to beat Ramon Chircop when all alone in front of goal.
Qormi put the issue beyond doubt on 65 minutes when Julian Zahra concluded a good move between Stephen Tanti and Jonathan Borg.