Identical Victories for The Hunters Tower Rest and Rabat Depiro

The Blue Label National League continued on Sunday and once more those hockey enthusiasts who braved the bad weather were rewarded with a good number of goals from the scheduled two games. Both games finished with an identical score line, with The Hunters Tower Rest YS beating Britannia Tours WH 4-0 and Rabat doing the same against Qormi Poiatti.

In the first game of the day, Young Stars notched up their second consecutive victory while White Hart suffered their third consecutive defeat. As if the heavy rain wasn�t enough, White Hart suffered an early cold shower when barely two minutes into the game Edward Hughes smashed in a Magro cross from the right and put his side in the lead. Hughes was in action again at the other end ten minutes later when he cleared of the line a certain goal following a short corner. The half was evenly balanced as Borg Costanzi and Giancarlo Torpiano caused problems for the Young Stars defence; while at the other end it was Hughes, Magro and Evans who tried to increase the score. Five minutes from the break, Young Stars sealed the issue with two quick goals. First Mark Camilleri pushed in following a short corner and a minute later White Hart had barely recovered when they were caught on the counter and Bonello fired in number three from the edge of the dee. White Hart tried their best to get back into the game in the second half but over the entire second half was rather poor with both sides messing up a number of short corners. Young Stars got their four goal three minutes from time through Jonathan Ellul.

In the second game of the day, both sides had a point to prove. Champions Rabat wanting to prove that their draw against Sliema Hs was merely a glitch while Qormi Poiatti were determined to put their defeat against Young Stars behind them. As it turned out the game was tense, full of determination but overall well played with the final result of 4-0 maybe mot doing justice to Qormi�s efforts on the field. As the previous game, an early goal set the pattern. Qormi�s defence was caught called and after Chircop had saved Vella�s first hit at goal it was Seychell who picked up the rebound and slotted in. Qormi reacted immediately with Micallef firing a short corner just wide and Chris Bugeja seeing his shot blocked by Azzopardi in the Rabat goal. Thanks to the early goal Rabat could play their counter attacking game, with Perales, Vella, Josef Antonelli and Seychell always a constant threat. In fact after 22 minutes in one such break, Antonelli was left unmarked and he had no difficulty in scoring number two.

The second half remained balanced with Qormi pushing forward but attempts by Jonathan Borg, Chris Bugeja and Sandro Bartolo were blocked by ably marshaled Rabat defence. Rabat�s counter attacks were a constant danger and 15 minutes into the half it was Radojevic finished of one such move. Qormi kept trying but to no avail and five minutes from time it was Shawn Falzon who closed the score at 4-0.

Sunday will see two more games from the National League, with The Hunters Tower Rest facing Sliema Hs at 9.00am and Britannia White Hart the first team to conclude their first round commitments when they face Rabat Depiro at 11.00.
 

Henry Cachia / Ian Crockford