THE high hopes engendered by David Llewellyn's debut in a Malvern shirt evaporated just after half time of a bad-tempered encounter at Spring Lane on Saturday.

MALVERN 11pts, KENILWORTH 27pts

Malvern had gone ahead with two Sam Hardcastle penalties as the Warwickshire side continually offended on and off the ball, mainly at the ruck. Unfortunately most indiscretions went unpunished by the same weak referee who had been at the first game between the two sides and Malvern appeared to take their collective mind off the task of striving for two points as provocation was answered in like fashion. The loss of two Kenilworth forwards within a few minutes of each other before half time should have given Malvern the impetus to turn the screw and make the two-man advantage count. Instead, the visiting full back, a classy player, cut through the Malvern defence and scored to bring the half-time advantage down to one point.

The score spurred on the Kenilworth side, whose backs had threatened sporadically in the first half, and they began to run the ball at Malvern with more confidence. After yet another ugly incident, when a Kenilworth player dropped a knee into the face of a prone Paul Jenkin leading to his departure from the game, the Malvern side had to be reshuffled and lost shape behind the scrum. Kenilworth went further ahead with a 55th minute penalty and Malvern then lost prop Shawn Lancett for 10 minutes in the sin bin. Kenilworth, unlike Malvern, made the most of the advantage with a quickly worked converted try from a scrum on 65 minutes, then followed it up when they referee awarded them a penalty try 5 minutes later.

Malvern's pack raised their game, Paul Hart coming off the bench with some purpose and a five minute spell of pressure ended with David Irish squeezing in at the corner for a try, but it was a case of "too little, too late" and Kenilworth rubbed salt in the wounds with a fine cross-field kick straight into the winger's arms for the final score three minutes from the end.

Director of Rugby David Robins was unhappy with the Malvern performance. "This was our worst home performance of the season. We lost the momentum to climb into the top half of the table and learned some stark lessons out there today. Principally, we lost the game in the backs - you can't rely totally on the front nine. We had no penetration against the Kenilworth back line, who were quickly up on everything and to cap it all we made nothing of a two man advantage in the middle period. I would question the wisdom of re-appointing a referee who had such a poor match at the first meeting of the two teams - he showed poor judgement and awarded a penalty try which even the Kenilworth players agreed was a bad decision. This isn't sour grapes, merely a comment on the appointments system. Kenilworth were effective at killing the ball and were full of belief after half-time, deserving the win. It was a poor game for Dai Llewellyn's debut - his first full game for two years was a learning curve as he had to adjust his style to a lower level of rugby than usual for him and the training field is where the communication can be ironed out. We lost a chance to consolidate our position today and must take our home advantage seriously next week against Dunstablians if we are to keep ahead of the relegation battle below us."

The Dunstablians game at Spring Lane is scheduled for an early, 1.45pm kick off this Saturday, December 28.