Honours were shared at the New Era Stadium, Cabramatta as Malta and Philippines met in women’s and men’s senior internationals for world ranking points. The Philippines Sampaguitas triumphed 42-0 against the Malta Dames in the women’s clash, winger Tynia Wells with a hat trick of tries, while in the men’s encounter, Malta’s Knights won 46-22 against the Tamaraws, backrower Dylan Hodgson with a try treble in the Friendship Cup.

Philippines RL president, Reynaldo Nery, commented: “In its second year we saw another successful Friendship Cup event. The Philippines women’s team taking the win against Malta was a very special game for our girls as Renee Targett and Tammy Fletcher played their final internationals, and future stars like Natalia Webb, Payge Condon and Cassandra Koch will need to take the reins. Our new look men’s team fielding relatively young players are building for the future and we hope to take back our win next year.”

Malta Knights stand in coach, Ben Sammut, noted: “A huge congratulations to all the boys on an amazing effort. To put in such a clinical performance is very rewarding, just about everything we spoke of they executed which always pleases a coaching staff. I couldn’t be prouder of them.”

“We defended for most of the game and had very little ball - it’s hard to win games like that,” said Malta Dames coach, Alysha Janssen. “But we’ve spoken about learning from it and we’ll be better for it next time, we have some great young talent coming through.”