Malta A 21
Swiss Barbarians 15
With the men’s national team away in Sicily last weekend, attention shifted to women’s Sevens at Marsa where an international tournament was played involving Norway’s Vikingettes, the Swiss Barbarians and two Maltese teams.
The climax of the two-day competition saw Malta A take on the Barbarians in the final.
Both teams started brightly, testing each other’s defences.
The Swiss were the first to crack when they lost possession from a scrum and Rodianne Bugeja took advantage to score. Amanda Cassar converted.
The Barbarians struck back immediately after the re-start. They broke upfield and star player Carole Casparis duly delivered the points.
Malta then suffered a blow when they lost the influential Lorna Mifsud with a knee injury. She was replaced by Sairita Cassar and shortly afterwards, the Swiss ran in their second try after the locals lost possession in the breakdown and Christa Hermann powered over to score.
Again, the Swiss missed the conversion, but held a slender three-point lead. This only lasted a few minutes though as Amanda Cassar found space down the left after clever interplay between Dorin Jager and Marilyn Grech, and ran in unopposed.
Malta extended their lead just before half-time.
Casparis uncharacteristically got caught in possession five metres from her own line and lost the ball. Jager cut in towards the posts before releasing the ball to Sairita Cassar who scrambled over to touch down from short range.
Malta resumed 21-10 ahead and playing into the wind, which made it difficult for them to break out of their own half.
Their defence was being stretched in open play, and eventually the Swiss got the overlap they were looking for when Grech drifted out of position and Her-mann sprinted through to notch up her second try.
A sustained period of pressure by the Swiss kept the Maltese on the back foot and player of the match Amanda Cassar came to her team’s rescue to prevent the Barbarians from drawing level.
Malta’s one area of dominance was in the set-piece. This factor, coupled with the tiring Swiss team spilling the ball in the final pass, saw Malta hold on to win a thrilling encounter and leave the Swiss to rue the missed conversions.