TARXIEN RAINBOWS 1
Galea 48

GŻIRA UNITED 0

Julian Galea’s solitary goal provided stand-in coach Ryan Pulis a dream start as Tarxien Rainbows won a match involving two teams from the lower end of the Premier League standings.

Tarxien had the first chance of the match on 18 minutes as Claudio Frances tried to square the ball at the centre, Galea slid in at the back post but could not connect with the ball.

On the other side, Rafael Ledesma curled a free-kick over the wall but Andrea Cassar tipped the ball over the bar. From the ensuing corner, Souleymane Diamoutene rose above the pack only to see his powerful header stopped by the crossbar.

Tarxien also looked threatening at set-pieces and in the 23rd minute, Boerchio produced a smart save to push Daniel Zerafa’s free-kick around the post.

The Rainbows continued where they left off in the first half as they went ahead three minutes after the break. Boerchio failed to hold Daniel Ponce’s long range shot, the ball fell into the path of Galea who hammered it home.

Gżira’s reaction was sterile as it didn’t go beyond a couple of speculative crosses that failed to unnerve Cassar. Abdilla tried to inject some pace up front into his team’s play, bringing on John Nwoba for Zachary Scerri.

The Rainbows were quick to switch from defence to attack as they lofted the ball upfield to Tristan Caruana who sped forward and served Galea who outsprinted the onrushing goalkeeper, but his illegitimate position when receiving the ball halted the striker’s run.

At death, the Gżira players yelled handball when a defender appeared to have hit the ball with his hands to deflect Tonna’ s long-range shot but the referee waved play on.