Sliema 14 Exiles 9

(4-2) (5-3) (4-1) (1-3)

In their second outing, Exiles showed a marked improvement when they met an erratic Sliema side coming from two consecutive defeats at the hands of San Giljan and Neptunes.  The final score does not reflect a complete picture of how the contenders performed earlier tonight at the National Pool.

It was evident at the start that the Blues were still shell shocked with our lads quickly  settling in the game even though they trailed their more-quoted opponents throughout the encounter. In the last three minutes of the third session Gergely Kiss of Sliema got his second personal fault after fouling Frenchman Romain Blary (in photo) of Exiles. Romain was now being double marked after he  found the net three times. This move proved costly to Exiles as the responsibility to finish off the attacks fell on the rest of his team mates. All in all it was a balanced match with the third session proving to be the downfall of a tired Exiles team with Sliema  building an unassailable lead of 13-6 before Cousin’s boys reacted boldly in the last quarter, winning it whilst producing some solid defending and creating fast breaks. From the stands it seemed that some of our boys are still goal-shy as seen in the second part of the game especially in the last session when sharper potting would have produced a better scoreline.

Romain Blary ended with a poker whilst Vojislav Cupic was evident in mid-pitch and managed to score a hat-trick including two beautiful lobs, Kurt Griscti scored Exiles ‘first goal from a man up situation whilst Kayne Lanzon scored from a break.

Aurelien Cousin had an inexperienced bench after injured Simon Vassallo and Julian Rizzo Naudi had to call forfeit. Substitutes Diego Borg and Nicky Portelli did a good job and contributed to the team’s encouraging performance.  Other players used by Frenchman Cousin were David Pace Lupi, James Spiteri Staines, Peter Borg and goal-keeper Ian Bugeja who had another good performance to instill the much needed confidence to the whole rearguard.

For the record, Exiles scored 3 of their 8 times in numerical advantage whilst conceded 2 goals when defending the 7 man-downs.

Reporter KAFA

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