Malta coach Anthony Micallef has named a 35-man squad ahead of the June 21 international against Belgium at Carnegie Headingley Stadium.

Micallef declared that the match was quickly turning into another challenging case of player availability.

“The squad is virtually every player considered for the match. But from that group, a number of players are dependent on their clubs releasing them mid-season and others recovering from injury,” Micallef said in a statement.

“We’re only really sure of the Malta-based players. They’ve been in training since March at LivingWell and will make up the nucleus of the squad. There are 16 domestic players in the train-on squad.”

The squad is void of any of its elite players but is a show of depth at the second tier with the likes of Jarrod Sammut, Jonathan Wallace and Alex Rowe who play in England’s Championship.

Another England-based player is Maltese prop Jeremy Dela who linked up with Birmingham Bulldogs earlier this year.

The June 21 clash will mark stage one of three this summer according to Micallef.

“This match will see our 2014 debutants add another stripe to their collar. We’ll introduce a couple of newcomers too,” he said.

The MRL are already reviewing applications for the post of high-performance assistant coach, a post to be announced by August ahead of Malta’s World Cup qualifiers.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.