Superb take-off leads Overseas to victory

Overseas 37
Kavallieri 10

Alan McKay’s Overseas maintained their winning streak against Kavallieri last weekend, beating the Malta champions in a Medit-erranean Bank Cup tie to leave all teams in the top part of the table with a chance to reach the final.

Overseas got off to a great start as the daring runs of Wright, and the support of full-back Boland put the team on a perfect platform and the depleted Kavallieri found themselves on the backfoot.

Inside the first five minutes, Overseas already had two tries in favour, through Wright and Van Reeven, and one conversion.

That early lead allowed Overseas to stick to their gameplan – allow Kavallieri to enjoy possession and rely on counter-attacks, using a wide array of combinations involving their lethal centre-halves, flyhalf and full-back.

Boland added two more tries as scrum-half Beppe Sammut scored a solo try from half-pitch.

At half-time, Overseas had victory in their sights thanks to a huge 27-point lead over Kavallieri who were close to the opponents’ try-line on some occasions. Clearly, the unavailability of some of their regular players was leaving its toll.

Kavallieri, who had Joseph Cutajar in fine form, held territorial advantage after the break but the lack of imaginative runs to breach Overseas’ defence began to have an undesired effect on the tactics adopted by coach Matt Emerson.

Overseas were content to sit back and let Kavallieri do the hard work, without scoring any points.

Then, midway through the second half, Kerry Kemper, of Overseas, was sin-binned by efficient referee Da Silva and Kavallieri soon profited from their numerical advantage, scoring a driving run by their pack, completed by evergreen flanker Daniel Grima.

Kavallieri looked back on track but Boland completed his hat-trick of tries to put the match beyond Kavallieri’s reach.

However, Kavallieri continued to pressure Overseas and the latter lost their cool as Frenchman Maestre was yellow-carded.

With two players out, many thought Overseas would lose composure.

But that was not the case as Kavallieri also had Bonavia and Borg yellow-carded and their chance of a comeback was lost.

Kavallieri still managed a second try, thanks to Grima, but Boland continued to create havoc in the opponents’ defence, scoring his fourth try of the afternoon.

The competition for the top two placings is now looking tighter than ever with both Overseas and Kavallieri involved in a three-way battle, along with Stompers, for a berth in the final.