MALVERN travelled to Finstall Park hopeful of securing clear second place in the Midlands West Two league table behind Derby.

BROMSGROVE 44pts, MALVERN 12pts

When Dan Cullen opened the scoring in the first minute after Dave King had made a break, the hopes of the large away following were raised, but Bromsgrove's lively and mobile pack had other ideas, camping inside the Malvern 22 metre area.

The home side scored a pushover try converted by Lloyd Jones to make the score 7-5.

Malvern ran the ball back at upfield and King sold a beautiful double dummy to ghost through and score under the posts, Longley converting to stretch the lead to 7-12.

Malvern tried to run the ball all the time, whilst the Bromsgrove coaches had done their homework, deciding that their well-drilled pack should deny Malvern any good ball by dominating the scrums.

The penalty count against Malvern, which finished at 35 to seven, started to tell and Bromsgrove put two over in quick succession to retake the lead 13-12.

With more needle coming into the match, the referee started losing control of the situation and bizarrely sin-binned Blakeway when the perpetrators of most of the off-the-ball shenanigans were from the home side.

Malvern continued to soak up the pressure, defending the line despite the high number of penalties, and seemed to be restricting Bromsgrove to a single point lead. However, a free kick was quickly taken and prop Phillips caught the Malvern defence napping to trundle through and score a converted try for a 20-12 scoreline at the break.

After the interval, Bromsgrove stepped up the pressure, giving the Malvern pack a torrid time in the set scrums. A quick line-out saw a score in the corner and suddenly there was daylight between the two scores.

Tails up, the home side continued to starve Malvern of the ball, the backs only being released occasionally. Another penalty resulted in a line out five metres from the Malvern line and a catch and drive brought another try in the corner.

More fisticuffs followed when Mark Eastwood was kicked after being bundled into touch. His retaliation, and the general melee which followed, resulted in two players from each side being shown the yellow card as the referee struggled to keep control.

A final Bromsgrove converted try ended the scoring, the better side on the day showing that their game plan was sound, but the cynical and unnecessary play used to help the cause left a bad taste in mouths of many home supporters as well as the visitors from Malvern.

Malvern's Director of Rugby, David Robins, was sanguine about the outcome. "They had a very effective game plan which worked from the half hour mark onwards. They knew they had to stifle our running game and did so effectively by denying us good ball. They exposed some weaknesses, which we now have to work on before our next big test at Derby next month. With an 'A' side out next week, we can take a look at some of the emerging talent coming through as we continue our rebuilding process."