THIS match was not one for the faint of heart and the Pirates let their rugby do the talking as their opponents resorted to the 'rough stuff' as the Malvern lead built up.

OLD YARDLEIANS U16S 5pts, MALVERN U16S Pirates 55pts

This was a shame, because for the first ten minutes the balance of play was even and both sides played some good running rugby.

Malvern finally broke the stalemate with probing runs from centre backs Phil Shore and Richard Pitt. With their dependable back-row trio of David Wood, Ben Mason and Will Bowen cleaning up at the breakdowns, Malvern were able to dictate the play in the Old Yards 22.

Tom Longley's slight-of-hand pass found Bowen on the break, who then drew the defence wide allowing Shore to plough through the gap for a score between the posts.

Minutes later lock forward Piers Harris scored under the bar, following Longley's deft cross-field kick behind the Olds Yards defence. The home side's full-back gathered the ball but he was scragged by Pitt and winger Greame Davis. With the ball in their possession, the Pirates moved play back in-field before Harris crashed over for the try. Longley's two conversions put Malvern 14-0 in front.

The recent line-out coaching from the Malvern 1st players proved to be a bonus for the Pirates and Stefan Milosavjlevich's aerial prowess gave Malvern the edge. After gaining a good field position ten metres from the Old Yards line, Milosavjlevich attacked and stole the throw-in and from the resulting maul, it was prop forward, Ben Clewer who barrelled over for the try with the extra two points secured from the boot of Tom Longley.

After that, the mood of the match became more hostile and when Old Yards were prevented from scoring a certain try from a set-piece penalty move thanks to the awesome tackling of Shore, Pitt and Bowen, a series of off-the-ball incidents broke out.

Malvern were then reduced to 14 men after scrum-half Ross Jones expressed his displeasure to the referee after Bowen was given 'special attention' on the blind-side of a ruck. Despite this set-back and continued provocation from the OY players, the Pirates remained focussed and they extended their lead with tries from Phil Shore and winger David Morgans before OY's managed to sneak in a try at the break. The conversion was charged-down by Ben Mason and Malvern were comfortably ahead by 31-5.

A dump tackle on Longley late in the first half resulted in a neck injury for the mid-field 'maestro' and so Phil Shore was moved to fly-half with Jones returning to scrum-half, after serving his long 'cool-off' period on the bench.

Tries from Morgans and Lewis (2) and David Woods sealed the result and Richard Pitt, Malvern's man-of-the-match, pushed the score over the 50-point mark with two long range conversion kicks.