The UM Wolves men’s team kicked off their league campaign with another strong win, running out with a 50-5 scoreline over Overseas to make it two wins from two games so far in the new season.
Wolves were coming off a record 87-5 win over Overseas – but the prospect before them a mere seven days later was a different one altogether, with Overseas ringing in the changes.
On Wolves’ part there were two changes to the starting 15 as Daniel Ghirlando came in at scrum half and Mikel Dominguez Agirre started at lock. Last season’s player of the year Hamish Boult meanwhile was on the bench, as was Matthias Vassallo – one of the contingent who played in Wolves’ first ever competitive match in January 2022 and has since returned to rugby.
It was clear from the off that this week’s match would not be plain sailing. Wolves were fortunate as an Overseas penalty attempt rebounded off the upright and they could go up the other end and win a penalty of their own, which Kiwi Connor Muir had no problem in slotting to make the score 3-0.
The first try of the match would come as Overseas attempted to clear their lines. Winger Simon Borg made a winding run past a few defenders and out to the opposite wing, before passing to Axel Jeffers who gave a step in and then out to beat the Overseas full back and go over to score. Muir obliged with the conversion to make it 10-0 to Wolves.
That’s how it remained in what was a stop start first half. Overseas tried their best to keep the tempo of the game slow, but Wolves were also making errors which meant that they could not open play up as they liked.
It was Overseas who struck first in the second half with a try off a maul, but this seemed to be the wake-up call that Wolves needed: Hamish Boult responded with a trademark marauding carry that dragged two defenders along with him, and Mikel Dominguez Agirre shrugged one defender off and broke through the Overseas line, running 60 metres and side stepping the full back to score.
With two conversions, the score was suddenly 24-5 to Wolves, and this settled any nerves that happened to be at play.
The long-predicted rain began to come down, and ten minutes went by with no score but with Wolves comfortably managing the match. Boult secured the bonus point off a quick tap, and Jeffers added another try as he got on the end of some good backs play.
Federico Diaz meanwhile was off the bench and he was on the end of a big skip pass from Philippe Ioffe to score, and Dominguez Agirre finished the day off with a try in the last play.
Muir converted all bar one, making the score a very comfortable 50 points to 5 in Wolves’ favour.
The result is enough to place Wolves at the top of the table with a single league match played, and sets the momentum nicely for the first crunch match of the season against Falcons this Saturday.
Starting 15: Michael Galea, Jonathan Pace, Sven Camilleri, Kurt Aquilina, Mikel Dominguez Agirre, Gareth Blundell, Isaac Scerri, George Strickland, Daniel Ghirlando, Gabriel Seychell (Captain), Axel Jeffers, Virain Hariramani, Philippe Ioffe, Simon Borg, Connor Muir
Subs Used: Hamish Boult, Kurt Sciberras, Nick Xuereb, Federico Diaz, Keegan Weintraud, Adam Muscat Pitre
Subs Not Used: Leonard Schembri, Matthias Vassallo