The Maltese women’s 7s team were in action at the FIRA European Championship, played in Bratislava, Slovakia, last weekend.

Twelve teams took part and Malta, under the charge of coach Damian Neill, was in Pool B along with Turkey, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Bosnia.

Malta started with a 31-5 win over tour-nament newcomers Turkey, using powerful running to break through.

Next in line for Neill’s girls were Bosnia and this game had the highest score difference in the tournament as Malta won 59-0.

It was a great performance for the winners, taking on every opportunity to score and rack-up a confidence-boosting win.

Saturday was left with two more games as Malta faced the more challenging sides of Finland and Norway.

Finland opened the score in the first half and never looked back.

Malta did maintain good defensive cover but Finland won 22-7.

That upset was followed by another loss (24-5) to Norway who had probably the fastest player on board in the tournament.

Ultimately, Finland and Norway made it to the final. Finland won it 25-12.

On Sunday, Malta sealed yet another win after beating Lithuania 54-0.

With this game, Malta ranked third in Pool B, meaning they would play the fourth team in Pool A – Andorra.

The two teams had faced each other before and it was always a challenge for both sides. This time around, however, Malta had the better with a clean sheet after a 31-0 win.

Victory qualified Malta for the plate, this time against Latvia.

Latvia won the contest 20-5 but even though the result was against Malta the team showed persistence till the last stages when they scored their only try of the match. The Maltese were eventually classi-fied sixth out of the 12 nations.

Besides Neill, manager Carmelo Longo and physio Steven Cilia also accompanied the women’s 7s team in Slovakia.