The morning sunshine heralded another Saturday of high-quality rugby from the Wolves Women’s Team as they notched up two comfortable wins to take them to the top of the table in the MRFU Women’s 7s Series with just three weekends to go.
A match-up against Stompers – who coming into this weekend sat on level points with Wolves at the top of the leaderboard – kicked off the day, and the Wolves stated their intent from the outset, with two quick tries in the space of the first 90 seconds.
Directly off kick-off, Raisa Farrugia plucked the ball out of the air, and an offload to Mari Clemensen started a passage of play which saw seven passes and every player in a Wolves shirt on the pitch touching the ball and which culminated in Sairita Cassar running 60 metres to score the first try of the day.
The ball was recovered from the kick-off by Clemensen, who played it to Cassar, who then combined with Emma Borg on the wing to receive an offload and go in to score her second try of the day.
Tessabelle Sultana Evans was showing some power in contesting the Stompers breakdown, and she pushed two players off a ruck allowing Clemensen to turn the ball over and play out to Rasvita Sluckute who scored on the wing.
Play continued and Clemensen ripped the ball off a Stompers player in their half, allowing Sultana Evans to play out to Rebekka Bartolo, who in turn passed out to captain Raisa Farrugia who zipped down the wing to score her first try of the day and Wolves’ fourth.
Stompers pulled a try back – which they successfully converted – before the end of the first half, but it was very much one-way traffic.
The second half continued in much the same manner, as Wolves’ defensive pressure left little to no space for Stompers to play in or play out of.
It was that pressure which kept Stompers pinned in their own half, until Amber Dalli pounced on a loose ball to regain possession. The ball was shipped through the hands and out wide to Raisa Farrugia for her second try of the day and Wolves’ fifth of the match. This one was converted by Rebekka Bartolo to add two more points to the score.
Two more tries courtesy of winger Amber Dalli closed the game off, leading to a final score of 37-7 in Wolves’ favour.
They were jubilant, but a second match was still to come, as they geared up to face Kavallieri.
Kavallieri moved up the field off the kick-off with a couple of neat offloads, but a well-timed tackle by Bartolo allowed Clemensen to win a penalty off the breakdown. Scrum called, and the ball passed through the hands from Borg – playing at first receiver now – to Clemensen, out to Farrugia, and offloaded back inside to Clemensen who broke the Kavallieri line. She ran 50 metres before being caught by a defender, and the offload attempt to Cassar did not come off.
Defensive pressure on in the Kavallieri 22 metres caused a mistake, and that allowed Clemensen to break the line again after receiving the ball out of a scrum, this time scoring and also converting her own try.
A scrum was won immediately off the kick-off, and the ball came out to Farrugia on the wing who stepped one defender and then cut inside to beat another to score under the posts, with the position favourable for Bartolo to convert.
Kavallieri pulled a try back before half time, leaving the game still delicately poised at 12-5 in the break.
Any nerves were shut down however as Emma Borg held the kick-off, broke the Kavallieri defensive line and played the ball out to Amber Dalli who sprinted clear to score under the posts, with Bartolo converting again.
Sluckute added another try to her name as she broke past a defender and sprinted past another two to score under the posts before Bartolo herself added her name to the list of try scorers with what is her first ever try in a Wolves shirt.
Cassar scored her third try of the day after receiving a good offload from Nathalie Shaqiri, and a Kavallieri try in the last play of the match rendered the final score to be 38-10.
The two wins see the Wolves Women’s team move to the top of the league standings with 27 points, two points ahead of Stompers who sit on 25 points.
Three weekends are left as the season approaches its conclusion, with the first of those being on Saturday 2 March.
MATCH SQUAD: Raisa Farrugia (C), Tessabelle Sultana Evans, Mari Clemensen, Rebekka Bartolo, Sairita Cassar, Emma Borg, Amber Dalli, Rasvita Sluckute, Storm Ghirlando, Nathalie Shaqiri, Luana Borg, Annah Mallia, Amy Munro.
