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Malta Wins the European 7s Conference 2 tournament in Hungary.
The Malta Men's 7s team did the country proud in a European Men's Conference 2 Competition played in Hungary over the weekend.
By Bryan Corlett
They defeated Montenegro in the final by 19 points to 0, completely outplaying a very physical Montenegrin team who bashed away at the Maltese defences all day, but Malta survived the siege and fought back with some attractive running Rugby putting players into space to score three tries and two conversions. They continuously harried the opposition into mistakes and didn't allow them to get into the game.
Our two big forwards Mark Davey and Luke Watts crashed into the opposition all tournament, to give the speedsters out wide room to move. Astutely coached by Malta's Director of Rugby Damian Neill, this was a team that got better and better as the tournament progressed defeating Montenegro 35 to 0, Estonia 24 to 0 and Belarus 33 to 7 on Day One in the pool games. Winning their pool on Day two Malta put Iceland away 19 to 0 in the semi final, then blasted Montenegro in the final.
This win will bring a promotion for Malta now into Conference 1 for next season.
Malta's Women 7s team made it to the final in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Malta Women's 7s team made it through to the final of their tournament in Bosnia-Herzegovina, beating the likes of Austria 43 to 5, Andorra 34 to 12, then Croatia 24 to 0, in their pool games. The ladies then humbled Luxemburg 48 to 0 in the knock out stage.
The final was against a physical Latvian side who outmuscled them at the breakdown and bullied them when they had the ball and didn't allow them any go forward, or a chance to put some width on their game. But a credit to the girls they stayed in the fight, although 15 to 0 down, they put together a final movement going right then left, with about 10 passes, they outflanked the Latvians to score about 10 metres in from the touchline, an Amanda Cassar conversion was a beauty and sailed over, to make the final score Latvia 15, Malta 7. The Women put in a good two months training to climb this "Mountain" and the Malta Rugby community is proud of what they have done.
