MRFU president Kevin Buttigieg has made no secret of his ambition of seeing the Maltese rugby team  compete in high level competitions as the national team plays its second match in the FIRA-AER Conference South 1 when they host Cyprus at the Hibs Stadium this afternoon (kick-off: 2pm).

Malta have opened their commitments in the European qualifiers in style earlier this month when they dismantled Slovenia 42-14 in muddy conditions in Ljubljana.

However, today they are set for a far tougher test as they face a Cypriot side who has already shown that it has come a long way at this level after putting on a battling display against Croatia before going down 25-20 at the Paphos Stadium last October.

“We are looking forward to this match as another exciting challenge for our national team,” Buttigieg told the Times of Malta yesterday.

“Cyprus have improved a lot in the last few months as they have managed to bring into their squad several English players. But we’re focused on our team and the performance against Slovenia gave us a lot of encouragement and we’re confident that the players will get the job done and secure the win.

“Our goal is to win the Conference South 1 division for a fourth successive year and contest the promotional play-off against the top team in Conference North 1. I admit that it was disappointing to hear that last June the MRFU was forced to pull out of the promotional play-off due to financial problems.

“But that is in the past now, and we have already managed to put our house in order in a few months.

“Obviously, winning promotion to a higher division would mean that we would need to pull up our socks and work more to improve the level of our game from all aspects.

“Next week, I will be meeting some companies to bring them on board so that they can give us the financial stability on which we can build our sport.

“But the key to achieve all that is that all stakeholders in rugby Malta, be it players, coaches, committee members and clubs are united together to put the game on top of the agenda.”

For Buttigieg, this is his second spell as president of the MRFU after he had already occupied the post until 2006.

The MRFU chief has quite a clear vision of the way forward to see the game of rugby flourish in Malta.

“We need to invest seriously in the game and the starting point of that should be that we need to sit down for discussions with schools in Malta to have rugby back for Maltese children,” Buttigieg said.

“Rugby in schools was already present until 2005 but for some reason or another it stopped. Our plans are that we train PE teachers on rugby sevens, which is a code of the sport that will provide more fun to the kids, and they will be able to hold weekly sessions in all schools around Malta.

“It is also imperative that we build our local league and make it more exciting. At the moment, we’re blessed to have four clubs who are so competitive that they can beat each other on any given day but we need to continue to step up that level of competition as that is the only way for our players to improve.”

The MRFU chief is also planning to provide more matches for the Malta A selection, which is formed exclusively by Maltese rugby players who ply their trade in the Cisk League.

“I don’t think that playing two international matches every six months is enough to help improve the competitivity of the national team,” Buttigieg said.

“We are looking at holding talks with the sponsors to help us take our Malta A selection to compete in better competitions abroad.

“The plan is to take part in a tournament in Sicily and another one in Montenegro. There are also talks going on to bring the Swedish national team for a friendly match. That is the only way for us to get better.”

The MRFU chief is not only focused on developing the 15-man rugby game but is also keen to boost rugby sevens which has not only been included as an Olympic sport but is also one of the disciplines that will be staged at the 2023 GSSE in Malta.

“Malta has always had a great tradition in rugby sevens in the past years,” Buttigieg said.

“We achieved some great results against much bigger countries which showed that we have the potential to be ambitious. To this end, I am keen to build this sport in Malta and I’m looking to hire a foreign coach that can help us in this development and we can then set up a sevens league in Malta.

“We’re looking not only at the men’s game but also the women’s division as it is already well established here. Obviously, once the set up is strengthened, we will start playing more regularly in international tournaments and who knows where we can reach, but definitely we are very ambitious.”

Rugby infrastructure

Improving rugby’s infrastructure is another area of concern for the MRFU chief who confirmed that he had already positive talks with the Parliamentary for Youth and Sport Clifton Grima.

“At the moment, we already have an agreement in place with the Hibs Stadium management of having a rugby pitch in their new sports complex which I think needs to be looked at,” Buttigieg said.

“But other than that, we still need more facilities. In my mind, Marsa is the home of rugby and we have already in discussions to have three or four pitches build in a proper way.

“What we are looking at is to have synthetic artificial pitches installed which will give us the opportunity to play our game all year round. I would have no problem to have a surface on which both rugby and football is played on.

“I’m sure that the government will be keen to work out something with us as we’re a sport that has managed to bring to our country some excellent results without having much facilities in the last 15 years.

“Imagine what we can do if we have the right infrastructure that can guarantees us stability to train regularly all year round.”

Standings
Croatia (2-0-0) 9; Malta (1-0-0) 5; Slovenia (0-1-1) 2; Israel (0-1-1) 2; Cyprus (0-1-1) 1.