Gators no match for Kavallieri

Kavallieri 29
Alligators 0

This match was seen as a test to see whether Alligators could continue their dramatic improvement of late.

Kavallieri, on their part, fielded some of their experienced inter-nationals for this match on Saturday and also a number of newcomers who have come up through the junior ranks.

Indeed, the fact that they are challenging for the league is a big compliment to coach Joe Cutajar.

The first half was disap-pointing really as Alligators were strangely disjointed and gave away ground straight from kick-off.

So, Kavallieri were camped inside the Gators’ half for the first five minutes until they incurred a penalty, which was the only way Gators looked like breaking out.

Most of the play was in Gators’ half until Kavallieri hoisted what looked like an aimless high kick.

However, the ball was allowed to bounce twice, the second into Debierre’s hands for him to score a try.

Kavallieri continued to domi-nate territorially and spun the ball along the line to the wing, but a fine cover tackle by Alligators stopped him dead and into touch.

Again Kavallieri kicked into the corner, but Alligators threw the ball straight to the unmarked Jameson who only had to fall over for a try.

These two giveaways were fol-lowed by another Debierre try.

This one was converted by Vinitius.

Gators produced a few attacks but never really looked like breaching Kavallieri’s solid defence as the half was a story of a hesitant and confused side against a well-drilled and mar-shalled team.

However, the second half was much better as the Gators upped their game significantly.

They mounted several attacks but lacked cohesion to break the Kavallieri cover.

On one occasion, an attack initiated by Van der Linden was only broken down when he aimed a poor pass to his wing, although it was affected by a crashing tackle from Edmunds.

Allegrucci, Cutajar and Grech were prominent in leading Kavallieri charges and Schembri was enjoying his return at scrum-half.

At the other end, ubiquitous veteran Adrian Hillman came on at full-back for the Gators.

A clever low kick by Allegrucci gained some 60 metres for Kavallieri and after a series of close scrums and lineouts, Cutajar peeled off and slipped a good pass to Bonavia for the last try, again converted by Vinitius.

Meanwhile, a troubling factor in this game was the large number of penalties given away by Kavallieri and the bad habit of some of their players of arguing with the referee or trying to influence his decisions.