National coach Karl Izzo has named a provisional 21-man squad for the upcoming qualification tournament for the 2016 European Championships, to be staged in Serbia.

Malta will be up against Germany, Poland and Switzerland in Group G with the matches scheduled to take place at the National Pool from September 25-27.

Izzo’s squad, which will be trimmed to 13 players next week, is drawn from the Premier Division clubs with Neptunes having six players on the list, including Steve Camilleri who has just completed a move to Italian Serie A1 side CC Ortigia for the winter season.

Matthew Zammit and French-born Aurelien Cousin are among five players from San Ġiljan’s double-winning squad in Izzo’s initial selection while Sirens have four players.

Valletta and Sliema have three each.

This will be Malta’s second qualification tournament for the European Championships.

In the first-round competition, played in the Netherlands last February, Malta picked up three points after trouncing bottom team Latvia 36-1.

In the other two Group D games, Malta lost to France (21-4) and the Netherlands (19-11).

The Maltese team need to win two of their three games in this month’s tournament to stand a chance of securing what would be an historic qualification for the European Championships proper next year.

The squad
Alan Borg Cole (Neptunes), Jordan Camilleri (Neptunes), Niki Lanzon (Neptunes), Clint Mercieca (Neptunes), Michele Stellini (Neptunes), Steve Camilleri (Neptunes/Ortigia); Aurelien Cousin (San Ġiljan), Andreas Galea (San Ġiljan), Ben Plumpton (San Ġiljan), Dino Zammit (San Ġiljan), Matthew Zammit (San Ġiljan); Edward Aquilina (Sirens), Luke Caruana (Sirens), Marc Grech (Sirens), Nicholas Grixti (Sirens); Nicholas Bugelli (Sliema), Jerome Gabaretta (Sliema), Mark Meli (Sliema); Ryan Mock (Valletta), Michael Rizzo (Valletta), Ryan Sciortino (Valletta).

Programme

September 25: 18.00 Germany vs Poland; 19.15 Switzerland vs Malta.
September 26: 18.00 Germany vs Switzerland; 19.15 Poland vs Malta.
September 27: 09.00 Poland vs Switzerland; 10.15 Germany vs Malta.

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