A HASTILY arranged fixture saw the Malvern II Dogs blaze a trail in the balmy spring weather last Saturday at Spring lane.

MALVERN II DOGS 47pts, STROUD 10pts

Opening on the breeze attacking the Seagull end, the Dogs could have been down from the kick off, but fought straight back to set up a catch and drive which saw hooker Dave Irish go over for a fine try.

Straight from the resulting kick off they attacked again and splendid interplay between Longley and winger Dan Kay saw the latter score and the former convert the try.

Within seconds thoughts of a rout were on as this time a line out ball won by Hames was cleverly moved by fly half Tom Smith to Longley to put Malvern 19-0 up after just 10 minutes.

These thoughts were soon dismissed as Stroud gathered themselves and came back at Malvern. Their uncompromising ruck play saw them deep in the Malvern half for most of the remaining few minutes, with good work in defence from Ward and back row Proud in particular.

Another lineout close to the Stroud line saw the catch and drive, this time Snare bagged the try, but on half time the Dogs defence went to sleep and the visitors scored a try out wide.

Malvern playing into the stiff breeze found themselves up against it in the second half, and could not get a platform going. Stroud sensed this and launched wave on wave of pressure, which brought out try saving tackles from Tovey and Mitchard, finally they got another five points.

In the last ten minutes Malvern cut loose though, and a crunching tackle by Gaubert put White clear for a try, and hooker Lovegrove sent Beech in for a converted score.

The game was sealed when Ward went through several tackles to score under the posts.