Malta national rugby union team

Malta
Union	Malta Rugby Football Union
Nickname(s)	Il-imtaten (The Rams)
Emblem(s)	The Ram
Coach(es)	Damian Neill
Captain(s)	Dominic Busuttil
	Team kit
	Team kit
First international
	Moldova 58–8 Malta ; (2000-11-18)
Largest win
	Andorra 3–89 Malta ; (2018-03-24)
Largest defeat
	Moldova 58–8 Malta ; (2000-11-18)

The Malta national rugby union team are governed by the Malta Rugby Football Union (MRFU). Although Malta has yet to qualify for the Rugby World Cup, the island state has made remarkable progression since its first international in 2000.

It is currently competing in the Rugby Europe Conference, after topping the Conference 1 - South for the past two seasons – 2017 and 2018 – yet failing to win the play-off to rise to the higher level. The national side is ranked 39th in the world (as of 12 October 2019).

History

Malta's national team played their first match on 18 November 2000, against Moldova in Chişinău, which Moldova won 58–8. They played a subsequent match against Belgium that same year in Marsa, which Belgium won 26–0. Malta played four matches in 2001, and they recorded their first win in the fourth of them, against Monaco in Marsa. This was followed by a draw 10–10 with Norway, defeating Lithuania, Austria, Luxembourg, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia-Montenegro, Latvia and Hungary. They then played Moldova in 2004.

Malta then proceeded to enter the 2007 Rugby World Cup European qualification tournament where they were grouped in Pool D of the second round. After finishing third in their pool with two wins from four pool games, Malta entered a play-off along with Denmark, Andorra and Sweden to enter round three. Malta were successful and entered Pool B of round three.

The team is currently ranked 39th in the World Rugby world rankings, their highest ever position. They are coached by Welshman Damian Neill, a former Number 8 in the Welsh Premiership with Aberavon RFC and Maesteg RFC.

Current squad

Note: Squad as at 24 March 2018[1]

Note: Flags indicate national union for the club/province as defined by World Rugby.

Player	Position	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Club/province
Rhodri Apsee	Prop			Bridgend Ravens
Daniel Holliday	Hooker			Falcons RFC
Anthony Harvey	Prop			Overseas RFC
Clayton Cassar	Lock			Overseas RFC
Benji Borg	Lock		20	Falcons RFC
Darren Deguara	Flanker	20
Luke Watts	Flanker			Otley R.U.F.C.
Daniel Apsee	Number 8	45	30	Cardiff RFC
Julian Galea	Scrum-half	43		Falcons RFC
Rob Holloway	Fly-half	42		Sedgley Tigers
Chris Dudman	Centre			Westcliff RFC
Dominic Busuttil (c)	Centre	74
Tom Holloway	Scrum-half			Sale FC Rugby Club
James Kirk	Wing	27	27	Hull RUFC
James O'Brien	Fullback
Dragan Cerketa	Lock			Stompers RFC
Matthew Spiteri	Prop			Stompers RFC
Harry Collins	Hooker			Overseas RFC
Gary Hili	Number 8			Stompers RFC
Rory O'Brien	Centre
Andrew Vella	Flanker			Falcons RFC
Luke Mathews	Wing
Brendan Dalton	Wing			Falcons RFC

Coaches

Name	Years	Tests	Won	Lost	Drew	Win percentage
Damian Neill	2016 - present	5	3	1	1	0%
Len Ethel	2000–2001	3	0	3	0	0%
Nigal Ben Bennett	2001–2002	4	2	2	0	50%
Graham Richards	2002–2004	9	7	2	1	80%

Records of International Matches

Malta's test match record against all nations:[2]

Against	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	% Won
Andorra	2	1	1	0	50
Austria	1	1	0	0	100
Belgium	2	0	2	0	0
Bosnia and Herzegovina	1	1	0	0	100
Bulgaria	2	2	0	0	100
Croatia	10	4	6	0	40
Czech Republic	1	0	1	0	0
Denmark	2	1	1	0	50
Germany	1	0	1	0	0
Hungary	1	1	0	0	100
Latvia	7	5	2	0	71
Lithuania	6	4	2	0	67
Luxembourg	1	1	0	0	100
Moldova	2	0	2	0	0
Monaco	2	1	1	0	50
Netherlands	4	0	4	0	0
Norway	1	0	0	1	50
Poland	3	0	3	0	0
Serbia	3	2	1	0	67
Slovenia	1	0	1	0	0
Sweden	4	3	1	0	75
Switzerland	3	2	1	0	67
Total	60	29	30	1	49

References

http://www.rugbyeurope.eu/2018-rugby-europe-international-championships-m8-malta-vs-andorra#player1-7
"Results of all Internationals" (PDF). Malta Rugby. Retrieved 4 February 2015.

External links

gollark: It is written in Rust, though.

gollark: Thus, help?

gollark: Alternatively, I can just make the adding-to-nickname-mapping bit happen at exactly the same time as the checking-if-nickname-exists bit but that would be really annoying.

gollark: Another would be very aggressive locking or something.

gollark: One possible way to fix this would be to have a central "broker" task which receives all state-updating commands ever and maintains stateful state, but this would be annoying too unless I can give everything else read access to it, and actually getting responses back would probably be irritating.

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[1] ttp://www.rugbyeurope.eu/2018-rugby-europe-international-championships-m8-malta-vs-andorra#player1-7

[2] "Results of all Internationals" (PDF). Malta Rugby. Retrieved 4 February 2015.