Exiles win as Neptunes halt City’s run

Exiles 3CX bounced back from their opening upset to Valletta by beating Sirens Ritter Sport in the latter’s first outing as the Citizens’ fairytale start came to an abrupt end by a dominant Neptunes Emirates display yesterday.

In the first match of the evening at Tal-Qroqq, Neptunes easily disposed of Valletta, who must have harboured high hopes of offering the champions a good challenge after starting the season with two consecutive victories.

At one point in the second session, Valletta fought back to trim the deficit to 9-4 after they had been seven goals adrift.

But Neptunes, with a more standard formation in the water and with the trio of Vladimir Gojkovic, Steve Camilleri and Tamas Molnar looking unstoppable, re-established their superiority to make it 11-4 before ends were changed.

In fact, the gap between the two teams, especially when the Reds had their regular units in action, was clear and the lead widened in the third session, courtesy of chief scorers Camilleri and Molnar.

Reds coach Sergei Markoch introduced new faces in the last session and Neptunes’ momentum stalled. Yet, they still edged their opponents with the champions netting five goals to their opponents’ three.

In the other match, Exiles claimed their first win at the expense of Sirens. Joe Caruana Dingli’s team surprised their opponents’ young, but still raw, talent.

Exiles’ four-goal blitz at the start of the second session went some way towards determining a victory which was never in question. They guarded their fort diligently and, in attack, were it not for some defiant goalkeeping from the Sirens keeper, Exiles would have won by a bigger margin.

It had been pretty even at first before Exiles went ahead 6-3 in the second session with Caruana Dingli’s men netting four times without reply before Alex Attard cut the deficit to three goals.

Early in the third session, Goran Krstonosic cut the leeway to 6-4 before Exiles distanced themselves again with a Timmy Sullivan brace to open a four-goal gap at 8-4 with one session left.

That trend continued in the final session and Sirens were unable to stop the rot. Exiles broke their opponents’ passes effectively. Furthermore, they were well served by Marco Cuk who scored a hat-trick in the final session.

Summaries

Valletta 8
Neptunes 20
(2-5, 2-6, 1-4, 3-5)

Valletta: A. Sammut, A. Decker (1), K. Hyzler (1), K. Micallef, G. Sammut (1), S. Cachia, A. Galea, T. Camilleri, R. Kovacs (5), S. Cini, A. Arrigo, G. Ghirxi, T. Agius.

Neptunes: I. Bugeja, N. Lanzon (3), E. Aquilina (1), M. Stellini (2), J. Camilleri, Z. Mizzi, S. Camilleri (6), V. Gojkovic (3), K. Debattista, G. Pace, R. Sciortino, T. Molnar (4), M. Pisani (1).

Referees: S. Licari, R. Spiteri.

Exiles 10
Sirens 5
(2-2, 4-1, 2-1, 2-1)

Exiles: A. Borg Cole, J. Rizzo Naudi (1), K. Rizzo Naudi, D. Pace Lupi, T. Sullivan (3), M. Calleja (1), M. Cuk (3), K. Griscti, A. Zarb Cousin, A. Cousin (1), J. Paris, A. Sciberras (1), K. Lanzon.

Sirens: J. Sammut, A. Attard (1), P. Micallef, P. Borg, B. Nyeki, R. Mock, J. Borg, D. Cutajar (1), G. Krstonosic (2), C. Zammit, L. Caruana, D. Zammit, C. Mercieca (1).

Referees: M. Dalli, A. DeRaffaele.