Malta 22
Sweden 14
James O’Brien was outstanding, Oliver Sacco inspirational and the rest of the team equally impressive as Malta handed leaders Sweden their first upset in Nations Cup Division 2A in front of an ecstatic crowd, yesterday.
Three years ago O’Brien had broken the Swedish hearts with a late penalty that handed Malta a thrilling 25-23 victory at the same venue.
Yesterday, the Waterloo full-back punished the Scandinavians again when he notched 17 points and that included a timely, late try that left Sweden, who had played almost the entire second half with a player more, without reply.
This vital win lifted Malta to second in the standings and also guarantees the national team to stay in Division 2A for another two seasons with one match to go against Croatia next Saturday.
The outcome and atmosphere at Corradino will also lift the profile of the Malta Rugby Football Union to higher levels as they continue to develop the sport.
Surely, their calls for a home ground should not be discarded by the authorities as the MRFU have now given ample proof that they’re a serious organisation and their intentions to see rugby flourishing on our shores are both genuine and possible.
The match started at a frenetic pace and both teams had chances to break the stalemate when getting penalty decisions in favour.
However, Sweden’s Robin Fransson and O’Brien failed to hit the target.
O’Brien soon made amends though as in the fifth minute he converted another penalty, more central this time, to put the hosts 3-0 ahead.
That early breakthrough sparked a fightback from the Swedes but despite their efforts they simply could not breach the solid Maltese rearguard.
Sweden are more accustomed to cooler temperatures and with the sun shining brightly they soon slowed down their tempo as Malta started to pass the ball with more fluency.
Their efforts were rewarded on 21 minutes when Harry Collins released Sacco who sped down the wing for the first try of the match.
O’Brien failed the conversion to leave the hosts 8-0 ahead.
It took Sweden several minutes to get their game going again and when they did they had their lucky stars to thank for a try and easy con-version to pull back at 7-8.
In fact, the Maltese players stopped for what they thought was a Swedish infringement from a line-out but the referee waved play on and Thomas Arvidson burst unimpeded over the try-line.
Fransson scored the ensuing conversion.
Malta held composure despite having Kyle Mason sin-binned and a minute from the break Sacco’s pace again created problems to the Swedes who conceded a penalty.
O’Brien made no mistake and at half-time the combative hosts held a deserved lead of 11-7.
Sweden started the second half on the offensive and were unlucky when Fransson hit the bar from a penalty. When play resumed Joss Howlands shoulder charged Lee Sandberg and got sent off. He’ll miss Malta’s next match.
Any team would have crumbled in such circumstances but not Damien Neill’s men, yesterday facing formidable opponents ranked nine places higher in the IRB rankings.
In the space of a few minutes midway through the half, they won two penalties and O’Brien hit the jackpot twice – 17-7.
Fatigue started to creep inside Neill’s team late on and the visitors profited with a fine move that was wrapped up with a Jacobus van Niekerk try, converted by Fransson.
Sweden continued to pile up the pressure but the Maltese, who had Dan Apsee making his debut as a substitute, continued to fight hard and push their opponents out.
Then, with only two minutes remaining O’Brien was clever enough to negotiate his way past two opponents and score a ‘killer’ try for Malta to secure a famous win.
Malta
K. Mason, H. Collins, A. Livesey, L. Watts, C. Sammut, M. Bonavia, J. Howlands, M. Davey, T. Holloway, R. Holloway, V. Stivala, D. Busuttil, T. Quarendon, O. Sacco 5, J. O’Brien 17.
Subs used: C. Cassar, D. Apsee.
Sweden
P. Wiklund, R. Johansson, P. Blaha, I. Bengtsson, M. Bjorkebeck, S. Taylor, J. Petterson, R. Ornberg, L. Sandberg, C. Murphy, T. Arvidson 5, A. Taylor, J. Van Niekerk 5, T. Borg, F. Fransson 4.
Subs used: M. Stephensson.
Referee: P. Murinella (Portugal).
Standings
Sweden (5-1-1) 24; Malta (4-0-3) 20; Lithuania (3-1-2) 19; Croatia (2-0-4) 11; Latvia (1-0-5) 7.
Next matches
(Saturday) Croatia vs Malta; Latvia vs Lithuania. (May 5) Sweden vs Latvia; Lithuania vs Croatia.