The Malta Rugby Football Union chalked up another prestigious result after the women's Sevens team placed third in the European Championships Division A in Liege, Belgium, last weekend.

Carmelo Longo's girls were not ranked among the favourites in the 12-team competition that featured highly-ranked countries on the continent in rugby Sevens.

Drawn in Pool Two, Malta started its campaign with an encouraging 5-5 draw with Romania. A marginal 7-5 defeat to Austria put the team's chances in the balance though.

But the Maltese girls hit back strongly and registered three successive wins over Andorra (19-0), Belgium (17-0), and Bulgaria (36-0) that lifted them to second in the standings, level on 12 points with Romania.

However, it was Malta who progressed to the semi-finals due to a superior points' difference over the Eastern Europeans.

Belgium topped the group with 13 points.

In the semi-finals, Malta met the strong Finnish team who eased through to the final with a comfortable 31-0 win. Finland went on to win the tournament after they beat the Czech Republic 29-0.

However, that upset failed to dishearten the Maltese team who ended their commitments with a flourish after posting a clear 14-5 victory over Belgium in the third-place play-off to complete a memorable participation for the MRFU.

"The national women's squad achieved and surpassed the goals we had set for them this year," Damien Neill, the MRFU Director of Rugby, told The Times.

"Our main objective this year was to steer the team into a top 15 position in the European rankings, but they managed to do better than that when finishing 13th overall. This is an amazing achievement especially when one considers that there are only two women's teams in our league.

"The players are very passionate about representing their country and Carmelo and I are very proud to be their mentors."