Indiscipline wrecks Valletta’s sterling efforts

Overseas 54
Valletta 5

This championship match saw the league debut of Portuguese referee Lionel da Silva.

With both sides fielding several reserves as regulars were missing, the main difference was Overseas’ fly-half Nick Wright. He scored a handful of tries and converted most of them.

The Valletta pack showed great spirit but failed to contain their passion to the extent that they played with only 14 men for half of the match.

Their coach must instil respect and knowledge into his players, if the team want to fully enjoy their technical improvements.

The first 20 minutes saw Overseas established constantly in the Valletta 22, but strong and well-marshalled defence kept them out. Then, Wismayer collected the first yellow card and as a result the inevitable first Overseas try was scored and converted.

More attacks from Overseas and two more converted tries came in quick succession.

McCrae and Wright were all the time probing Valletta with their quick-thinking.

Two other tries came although Valletta gained territory but could not put together a series of sustained attacks.

On their part, Overseas gave away about 40 metres through errors and Valletta spent several minutes camped inside their opponents’ line, until finally they drove over. Sadly, the referee was unsighted at the vital moment and did not award the try.

Kelly, who was certain he had scored, earned himself a yellow card for disputing the decision as Overseas led 33-0 at half-time.

Overseas were unable to dominate the Valletta pack despite the leadership of Howland. Frustration set in, slipped into a niggling, spoiling mode, for which they were rather lucky not to be punished. Instead, Valletta started to argue too much and their game suffered as a result.

After a high tackle by Cassar, Azzopardi was silly enough to be sarcastic to the referee and got a red card. Nevertheless, Valletta still had the courage to hit back and Degabriele finally scored after a long period of forward pressure.

Quite apart from his devastating runs for Overseas, Wright was also superb in defence, with his low, hard tackles dropping charging forwards again and again.

A nasty late tackle by an Overseas player should have earned at least a yellow card, but this was missed.

Overall, this was a strange match which served to give some good experience to reserve players from both clubs. Overseas notched up the points to continue chasing Kavallieri, leaders of the Cisk League.