Qormi 4, Tarxien 1

Tarxien were embarrassed at Ta' Qali as Qormi cruised to a 4-1 win. Pereira da Silva scored twice with Bello Osagie and Matthew Bartolo also netting.

Tarxien took just 90 seconds to open the deadlock. Roderick Sammut sent Roberto Saraiva crashing to end Tarxien's first serious venture towards the Qormi penalty area.

The free-kick was awarded in Justin Grioli's territory. And the former Valletta defender hit the crossbar but the rebound fell kindly to Ricardo Costa who blasted the ball into the net.

Tarxien had countless chances to take the result beyond their opponents' reach.

It was barely possible for matters to get worse for Qormi when they lost Jonathan Bondin who limped off through injury.

With the Qormi side forced to reshuffle their pack and chase the game, Stephen Azzopardi shed his preferred 4-4-1-1 formation to a more offensive 3-4-3 module, Scicluna dropping between Sammut and Wellman to form a back three, allowing the veteran Jeffrey Chetcuti to push on extremely high up the pitch.

And the tactics worked to the perfection as Qormi moved upfield and Abubaker Bello-Osagie's trademark runs were causing havoc in the Tarxien defence.

The Rainbow's initial positive intent was matched by defensive frailty and Qormi took advantage twice in the space of three minutes. In fact there was no escape in the 36th minute when Matthew Bartolo's pass released Bello Osagie in the area, who escaped the defence's attentions to lift his finish over the advancing Cassar.

Three minutes later, Jorge Pereira beat the offside trap to latch on to Osagie's defence-splitting pass before beating Cassar with a superb finish from the inside-left channel.

The Rainbows, staged an initial reaction after the break with Farrugia saving from Anonam. But Noel Coleiro's side were living on the edge and tumbled over the precipice when Jorge Pereira da Silva took the ball off the toes of Antonio Everton Pereira and set off on yet another of his dazzling runs before unleashing a low drive past Cassar.

The goal deflated Tarxien completely and in the 65th minute Pereira showed a great deal of altruism when squaring the ball for Bartolo who tapped the ball home.

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