The first of the four crucial matches agianst the other teams which are expected to fight for the fourth to sixth placing of the Premier Waterpolo League went in favour of Valletta United who bagged three important points when they overcame Exiles by a five-goal margin when the teams clashed on Friday.

The match was a balanced one as the partial scores indicate but the Whites were the better side on the night with a very solid rearguard marshalled by Ryan Sciortino. Exiles did manage to get their danger man Milos Vukicevic in a favourable shooting position but his final ‘killer shots’ were off-target and apart from his solitary goal in the dying seconds of the encounter, his contribution to the team’s tally of goals fell short of expectations. In the attack, Exiles worked towards passing the final ball to Milos to finish off the move however the Valletta defence managed to swim back in time to ‘box in’ the Serbian international. It was expected that other members of the team take the responsibility of shooting but the final shots were somewhat controlled  by the Citizens’ defence.

Our opponents’ main spearhead, Kholod was also shadowed by practically all the Exiles players in the water with limited damage suffered. This gave other Valletta players the chance to pot at our goal with a certain amount of ease, resulting in soft goals conceded. Their attacks were more incisive as was their evident swimming power. Exiles were somewhat slow in setting themselves in attack before the Valletta defence settled its effective zone defence which thwarted Dorian Pisani’s plans

One consolation is the five conversions out of the six ‘man-up’ situations whilst our opponents found the net in five occasions out of the nine exclusions suffered by Exiles. A curious statistic arising from the match was that the eight goals scored by Exiles were netted by eight different players

Once again Dorian Pisani gave a chance to all the players on the line-up  but did not include reserve goal-keeper Gianni Ciappara. Those utilized were Ian Bugeja, Julian Rizzo Naudi, Simon Vassallo David Pace Lupi (1 goal), Daniel Borg Millo (1 goal), Edward Gravina ( 1 goal), Sean Gravina (1 goal), Kurt Griscti (1 goal), Nicky Paris (1 goal), Andrea Bianchi (1 goal), Luca Felice, Milos Vukicevic (1 goal), Kayne Lanzon.

Assistant Coach Matthew Pisani was red-carded in the first session by the local referee for passing remarks to the latter.

The team has now two days to re-group as an ardous task faces them on Tuesday 21st June when they meet neighbours Sliema ASC

KaFa

Photo by Adrian Farrugia

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