The Maltese national team kicked off its Rugby Europe Conference campaign with a comfortable bonus-point win over Cyprus on Saturday.
Two tries from young hooker Caleb Bonello, and tries from Philippe Ioffe and Thomas Holloway were enough to propel Malta towards a 27-8 win in Limassol, securing 5 points for Malta and putting the national team at the top of their group.
It was the first match in charge for new Malta coach Phil Pretorius, and he named a squad with a number of familiar faces – both young and old – to take on the task of Cyprus.
Lock George Elliott, who plays locally with Falcons RFC, was handed a test debut, while there were first starts for UM Wolves RFC flanker George Strickland and Stompers RFC winger Jean Scholey as well. Falcons RFC scrum-half Liam Davis was also called up to the bench for the first time.
The early minutes of the match saw some promising moves from the Maltese team: an early foray into the Cyprus 22m zone was scuppered by a forward pass, but Malta were capitalising on Cyprus’ malfunctioning lineout with both Robert Holloway and Chris Dudman kicking well to keep the pressure on their opponents.
Malta’s first chance for points came after around 15 minutes, but Chris Dudman’s effort from around 40 metres away sailed wide. Dudman however did open the score line a few minutes later from a penalty under the posts, making it 3-0 to the team in red.
Cyprus however responded shortly after with a penalty of their own, as a booming kick from close to the halfway line made the score level at 3-3.
It proved to be only a minor setback: a Maltese maul gained close to 15 metres off a maul, and after a few positive phases, the ball came to hooker Caleb Bonello who kept his feet and pushed through contact to score the try to put Malta back in front.
It was the first try for Malta for the young hooker, who only made his international debut in Malta’s last game in April. Dudman did not convert, meaning that the score stood at 8-3 with half an hour on the clock.
The momentum was with Malta, and a high kick from Dudman was fumbled by the Cypriot defence, with the ball being picked up by Robert Holloway. He played the ball out wide to Adam Kelly, who offloaded the ball back in to Holloway, who then offloaded to Philippe Ioffe for Malta’s second try.
Dudman’s conversion from out wide was unsuccessful, but Malta were now 10 points clear with the score at 13-3.
Jean Scholey was almost through after he dinked a sweeping backs’ play behind the Cypriot defensive line, but a defender managed to scramble back to recover. The teams went into half time with Malta clearly the better team and having the upper hand.
Three minutes into the second half, Cyprus tried to claw back three points with a penalty, but failed to do so. Malta immediately surged right back into the Cyprus 22m courtesy of Zarrin Galea, but the action came to nothing.
Malta then went down a man when Thomas Davey, on as a substitute, was yellow carded after the team committed repeated infringements. Cyprus capitalised immediately, with their scrum half Alexander Pantechis breaking away from a tackle to score. No conversion meant that the score was now 13-8 to Malta.
The game remained largely on equal footing with neither side threatening, as both teams made changes to their team – but then with 8 minutes left on the clock after extended phase play, Caleb Bonello broke through the Cypriot defensive line to score under the posts.
Dudman added the conversion, making it 20-8 to Malta and giving the boys a good lead going into the end of the match.
The victory was secured after another immense maul won 20 metres and brought the team onto the Cypriot try line, allowing scrum half Thomas Holloway to snipe around the blindside to score what is his 10th try in a Malta shirt.
Dudman added another two points from the conversion to make it 27-8 and put the game to bed.
The win extends Malta’s exceptionally good record over Cyprus, with 8 wins out of 9 games between the two sides, and was also enough to put Malta on top of Group D in the Rugby Europe Conference with five points.
Malta’s next tests will be against Andorra and Israel in April 2026.
Malta Starting 15: Andrea Borg, Caleb Bonello, Terence Galdes, Mark Davey, George Elliott, Cameron Sultana, George Strickland, Joseph Greaves, Tom Holloway, Robert Holloway, Jean Scholey, Chris Dudman, Adam Kelly, Philippe Ioffe, Zarrin Galea
Substitutes Used: Thomas Davey, Nicholas Azzopardi, Sven Camilleri, Harry Perkins, Luke Watts, Jon Jon Micallef, Liam Davis, Kyle Gauci