The first round from the BOV Premier Division comes to a close with two other matches between today and tomorrow.
Sirens Ritter Sport and Exiles Ferretti both showed significant progress in their respective last league outings but this evening they will be vying for their first championship points after three successive defeats so far.
Tomorrow’s clash between joint leaders Neptunes Emirates and San Ġiljan Sir Alex should attract more interest with the two neighbouring teams from Balluta Bay currently topping the stan-dings on a perfect record from their first three matches.
Sliema Frank Salt Real Estate completed their first-round com-mitments on Saturday with a hard-earned win over Sirens for their second competition three-pointer this summer.
The Blues, who parted with coach Sergio Afric earlier this month, are finding it hard to shrug off a rather sluggish start by their own standards, leaving cham-pions Neptunes and San Ġiljan to lay an early marker for supremacy in the top flight.
The Reds, perhaps the team with the best all-round perfor-mances so far, were not in action last weekend, giving them a few extra days to prepare for their match against San Ġiljan who were involved in a high-scoring encounter against an improved Exiles on Friday.
The Saints had Matthew Zammit playing below par on the day but his namesake, Dino, emerged as the team’s main protagonist with seven goals to help Karl Izzo’s team break the strong resistance of the Exiles lads who only gave up the fight in the last session before going down 17-14.
On Saturday, those at the National Pool were gifted with another high-octane affair as underdogs Sirens led for most of the match against Sliema only to finish empty-handed when Ger-gely Kiss scored the Blues’ last-gasp winner.
While it will be difficult to predict a result between revita-lised duo Exiles and Sirens today, the San Ġiljan-Neptunes fixture could give an early indication of where the title could be heading to this summer.
Meanwhile, interested on-lookers Sliema will be rooting for a stalemate in tomorrow’s top clash not to fall further behind in the championship race.
Fixtures
Today: 18.00 Otters vs Marsaxlokk; 19.15 Sirens vs Exiles.
Tomorrow: 18.00 Ta’ Xbiex vs Valletta United; 19.15 San Ġiljan vs Neptunes.
Premier League
| P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
| Neptunes | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 19 | 9 |
| San Ġiljan | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 33 | 9 |
| Sliema | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 39 | 44 | 6 |
| Exiles | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 29 | 42 | 0 |
| Sirens | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 26 | 40 | 0 |
Division One
| P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
| Marsascala | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 48 | 45 | 9 |
| Ta’ Xbiex | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 37 | 31 | 7 |
| Valletta | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 41 | 32 | 6 |
| Otters | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 27 | 36 | 1 |
| Marsaxlokk | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 32 | 41 | 0 |