Exiles suffered its eight consecutive defeat against League leaders San Giljan and remain pointless at the bottom of the Premier League standings. Last night’s show by the Boys lacked the discipline so evident in the previous encounter against Neptunes. The start was somewhat erratic on both sides before settling down. In two instances throughout the encounter, the Exiles players sent signs of resilience and reaction to bridge the gaps in the score created by San Giljan: the first one occurred in the second session with the score reading (2-4), the team had a rare break but the pass from mid-pitch was abysmal – the Saints scored from their next attack to go (5-2) up; the second happened in the third session when after two quick goals by Sean Gravina, Exiles were not awarded a blatant penalty with the score reading (6-8). Exiles suffered four goals without a reply and the gap widened to 6 before Romain Blary reduced it to five by the end of the quarter.  A shower of goals were netted (4-6) in the fourth session but half-way through this session, San Giljan piled more goals for a merited win.

Although Exiles never gave up, there were signs of nervousness in the building of the attacks. The team failed to keep possession of the ball for the full 30 seconds and some players took the initiative to shoot at goal when the team had hardly taken their usual positions. This attitude  allowed our opponents to break away at their leisure and the few times the team was set in the defence, blocking of balls towards the rear-guard  was non-existent, costing the team quite a few gift goals.The team’s calmness shown against Sliema and Neptunes was missing.

For the record Exiles had  four players expelled but the Saints converted two of them. The four penalties awarded (three for San Giljan and one for Exiles) were all scored. San Giljan had four man downs but Exiles managed just one.

Maurizio Mirarchi  Exiles Coach made use of eleven players – David Abela, Julian Rizzo Naudi, Simon Vassallo (1 goal), David Pace Lupi, Romain Blary (4 goals) who also won the four sprints, James Spiteri Staines, Sean Gravina (4 goals), Kurt Griscti (1 goal), Andrea Bianchi, Marco Cuk (2 goals), and Kayne Lanzon. Regular Goalkeeper Ian Bugeja and Luca Peric were not utilized.

The next match being played  by Exiles at the National Swimming Pool, Tal- Qroqq will take place next Sunday 12th July 2015, against Valletta United.

Swim-up at 16.45 hours

KaFa

photo by Adrian Farrugia

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