Overseas 64
Valletta Lions 14

A Valletta squad decimated by injuries were no match for the accomplished back play of Over-seas. However, the spirit of the City team was huge as they battled against the odds.

The forward contest was quite even but the Valletta backs were far too inexperienced, lacking posi-tional sense and being bewildered by the speed and variation they faced.

Gifted Overseas fly-half Wright quickly stamped his influence on the match, dummying and slicing through a gap to put Gibson in for the first try, converted by Chamberlain.

The next try followed a break by Bolland from full-back and the ball passed through seven pairs of hands as Valletta failed to tackle.

Chamberlain converted again.

Next was Naphausen, easily side-stepping from a ruck through half-hearted tacklers – another Cham-berlain conversion.

At last, Valletta woke up and began to play with some commit-ment.

The pack was pushing Overseas back at the set scrum with the heavy men Abela and Aquilina producing a strong grinding game.

Wright, however, was still jinking through so many times as the Lions seemed mesmerised by his changes in direction and speed.

Brincat was a constant livewire and it was the scrum-half who dived over for the Lions’ first try.

Brincat is a player of great promise and with good coaching will improve to be a contender for the honours.

For Overseas, the promising Decesare set up another try after a difficult catch. This is a player to watch for the future.

Brincat made a superb individual break and run.

When tackled by Bolland, he managed to offload and Moreno succeeded in battling his way through for a second Valletta try.

Brincat converted both with fine kicks.

The Valletta tackling picked up as Overseas were handed a fully deserved yellow card for a ten-minute sin bin.

But still Cassar, Watkins and McCue were a constant threat for Overseas with their powerful driving charges even though Val-letta’s front five never gave up the struggle.

Moreno’s boot was a territory winner for his team, but again and again they would battle in to the opponents’ 22 only to have the Overseas backs run the ball the length of the field.