San Ġiljan Giuseppe’s and Sirens Ritter Sport will lift the curtains on this year’s knock-out competitions when they meet in the first leg of their preliminary round tie this evening at the National Pool (6.45 p.m.).
The two Division One sides will be looking to establish a significant lead in today’s match ahead of the decisive second leg on Saturday. The winner of the Sirens-San Ġiljan two-leg game will face champions Neptunes Emirates in the semi-finals.
Both San Ġiljan and Sirens have not been in action since their positional play-off in the preliminary round of the BOV National League on June 22 as domestic competitions stopped for the national team’s Euro qualifying commitments.
The Saints, under the guidance of Karl Izzo, will fancy their chances of seeing off Sirens’ challenge in the KO after beating the St Paul’s Bay outfit 15-12 in their last meeting.
On the other side of the coin, Sirens will be determined to avenge their defeat to San Ġiljan not only to improve their chances of reaching the semi-finals but, more significantly perhaps, to lift their morale ahead of the start of the Division One championship.
Izzo will certainly look to Filip Trajkovic and Nikola Sutic to provide the firepower for San Ġiljan after the foreign duo, along with Christian Gialanze, hit four goals each in the 15-12 win over Sirens last month.
Sliema McDonald’s, the KO holders, have good cause to be optimistic about their chances of advancing to the final as they take on neighbours 3CX Exiles in the semi-finals. Despite their evident progress in recent years, Exiles are still some way from reaching the standards of the big two, Sliema and Neptunes, but that should not stop them from putting up a strong a challenge in their two-leg KO meeting with the Blues, with the first match tomorrow.
While Exiles have been inactive since their 18-7 win over Marsascala meat.com mt in a league play-off on June 22, Sliema were involved in another gruelling encounter with rivals Neptunes in the President’s Cup final on Tuesday.
Sergio Afric’s team showed their usual battling qualities but still failed to record their first win this summer over their rivals who won 12-11.
The second leg of the Exiles-Sliema KO semi-final is on Tuesday.
Programme
Today: 6.45 p.m. Div. One KO preliminary round (first leg) San Ġiljan vs Sirens.
Tomorrow: 6.45 p.m. Div. One KO semi-final (first leg) Exiles vs Sliema; 8 p.m. Division Two KO semi-final (first leg) Ta’ Xbiex vs Otters.