Stompers 32
Kavallieri 5
Stompers made the most of a strong wind blowing behind them to impose their supremacy very early in this Mediterranean Bank Cup tie against Kavallieri, played last weekend at Marsa.
They were first on the mark after a penalty kick for offside led to a line-out 10 metres from the line. Stompers won their own throw, setting up a rolling maul from which Dragan Chetcuti broke away to score.
Stompers doubled their points on 22 minutes when they were awarded a free-kick for a scrum infringement. Jaco Bernard broke through the Kavallieri defence and passed to Sam Borg. He handed off his tackler and flipped the ball to Matt Camilleri who ran through to touch down.
Stompers continued to dominate and could have scored more, but knocked on just short of the line on a couple of occasions.
Five minutes from half-time, Camilleri made a break to Mario Fountain through on the left to score. With no conversions, the score at half-time was 15-0 in Stompers’ favour.
Kavallieri were forced to make three changes at the break with Pace, Bonnici and Cutajar all coming off. Because of that, the scrums went uncontested.
Kavallieri failed to close the gap when they missed a kickable penalty. Josef Borg was sin-binned for a high tackle and the missing player cost Kavallieri dear as Stompers scored twice.
From a line-out, Sam Borg shipped the ball to Bernard who ran through to score. The second try came from a knock-on and scrum on the five-metre line. Borg picked up from the base of the scrum and offloaded to Max Galea who shimmied over the line.
Stompers scored the best try of the game on 65 minutes. Matthew Alexander started the move and Fountain unleashed Debattista. He was ankle-tapped but still managed to offload to Borg who returned the favour. Debattista offloaded to Schranz and he cleverly slipped the ball to Camilleri who went over in the right-hand corner for his second try.
Two more yellow cards followed in quick succession, the first against Galea, for interference, and the other went to Moore for ‘killing the ball’.
Kavallieri scored a consolation try when they shipped the ball quickly along the line from a scrum to put Sammy Kawara in on the left.
An unfortunate incident towards the end, which spoilt an otherwise fairly contested match, led to Grech and Borg being sent off.
Man of the match: Matt Camilleri.
Referee: Lionel da Silva.