Alligators improve but Stompers secure points

Birkirkara Alligators 10
Sliema Stompers 27

It seems that thanks to the new club facilities and a positive contribution from the MRFU Community Coaches, the long-awaited rejuvenation of Alligators begun in earnest, so, the expected runaway win for Stompers was never on the cards here.

Stompers started promisingly and early sweeping attacks looked dangerous. However, too many of their players were only thinking of crossing the gain line which leads to selfish play.

Repeatedly, Stompers players made promising breaks without connecting to support and finish things off.

Gators, meanwhile, incurred far too many penalties in the loose which enabled Stompers to kick into attacking positions.

From a penalty, deep in the Gators’ half, Cerketa came on an angled burst to carry three de-fenders over the line for the first score, converted by Attard.

Shortly after, Attard also kicked a goal from yet another soft penalty conceded by Alligators.

Luke Debattista’s move to Stom-pers’ centre is working but he needs to develop a little more sophisti-cated subtlety and awareness of surrounding movements.

On the whole, the Gators defence played admirably.

However, a gap was produced by multiple recycling and Camilleri burst through the middle to score (again converted by Attard).

Crisp, flat passing from Stompers created an overlap but Camilleri failed to pass to Pavanello.

This was followed by Attard wasting a four-man overlap on the right. Then, a tactical kick put Stompers up to the Gators’ line and eventually the forwards drove over for another try.

But the Gators snapped back.

A wide swerving run by Vella released Borg but Pavanello was too fast and cut him down. Vella and Galea added energy to the Gators and the forwards were making hard driving runs.

They approached the line and Galea dived in for a try , which was converted by Briffa, to cut Stompers’ lead at the half-time break to 22-7.

Alligators restarted vigourously but Briffa missed a penalty.

Nevertheless, they were en-joying territorial advantage and Briffa made up by converting another penalty effort.

Play flowed from end to end as most of Stompers’ attacks broke down through careless and selfish running.

Max Galea, of Stompers, dived over for a try after a scrum but Gators drove back up the field and spent time attacking only for the final move to let them down.

A cheeky side-footed chip into the corner by Briffa nearly led to a Gators try but, yet again, over eagerness frustrated their efforts.

In the end, Stompers only won the second half 5-3, making it obvious that standards are even-ing out and the league becoming more competitive.