Kavallieri 24
Overseas 31

Overseas got off to a dream start in this election-day cup game when, with just 90 seconds on the clock, Vince Stivala cut through a swathe of Kavallieri players before floating a pass to Mick George who ran in unopposed under the posts to open the scoring.

Five minutes later, Kavallieri had an excellent chance to score after slick passing along the back line opened up space on the right, but the final pass from Rod Attard went behind winger Patrice Debiere five metres from the line.

Then followed a period of sus-tained pressure from Kavallieri.

With Overseas camped on their own line, they gave away four penalties in quick succession and Kavallieri chose the lineout option each time.

Finally, the desperate Overseas defence led to Simon Vassallo being yellow-carded for coming in from the side.

A few minutes later, Kavallieri exploited the one-man advantage when Sean Doublesin combined well with Darren Edmunds, who shipped on to David Lewis to score.

With the teams level, Overseas went back on the attack, and Stivala jinked through the defence, but Clayton Cassar knocked the pass on with the line beckoning.

However, Kavallieri soon in-creased their lead five minutes before half-time, after a quickly-taken penalty by Doublesin saw the ball run loose from the tackle.

Edmunds scooped it up and sprinted to the line unchallenged.

The half-time whistle sounded with Kavallieri 17-7 ahead.

Overseas started the second half with an early try. Stivala played a neat one-two with new centre Osgur McDermott Long, and then sent Jean Claude Thompson on his way to finish a well-worked move.

Eight minutes later, they scored again on the opposite wing when Thompson found Mick George, who ran through defenders before releasing prop Dillon Urry to break through the tackle and ground the ball just over the line.

For the next 20 minutes, the game became a scrappy affair.

Overseas’ line-out was hap-hazard and Kavallieri’s back line lost their first-half edge.

Eight minutes from time came a game-changing moment when Sti-vala hoofed a big kick downfield. The ball ran to the try line where Doublesin gathered and, under pressure from the chasers, passed to Moore who knocked on, leaving a grateful Sivala to pick up and score.

Overseas lifted their game after this, and five minutes later set up another attack down the left.

First George, then Cassar, carried strongly to make ground, then Thomson threaded a nicely-weighted grubber kick through the defensive line and followed it up to touch down, and then convert his own try to take the score out of reach.

Kavallieri fought back and in the last minute Nicolai Grech set up a ruck 10 metres out. The ball was fed back to Griffiths who weaved his way through to score a consolation try. That left the final score 31-24 in Overseas’ favour.

Man of the match: Vince Stivala.

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