MALVERN Town have two consecutive Banks's Brewery League Premier Division home games this weekend, when Shawbury (3pm) visit the Langland Stadium tomorrow (Saturday) and Ettingshall HT (3pm) make a third attempt to conclude a visit to Malvern.
Shawbury have adapted well to life in the Premier Division following their promotion last season and like Town are looking to finish in a leading position.
Bank Holiday Monday's visitors Ettingshall controversially pulled out of a game at Langland Stadium last October, when on the morning of the game they believed that the floods around Worcester would prevent them from getting to Malvern. They were subsequently fined by the League.
Town, who also hope to put the disappointment of Monday's Senior Urn defeat behind them, will be without Raj Sharma, who has seriously damaged knee ligaments after being crudely fouled in the first half of Mondays final. However skipper Sean Cotterill is expected to return as is winger Chris Thomas.
Town assistant manager Richard Anson said: "It has not been a good week for us, at 4.15 last Saturday we were cruising to a comfortable win at home to Tipton, only for them to defy the odds and pull two goals back, we then suffered a quite ridiculous double sending off by a referee who we have since reported.
"We then under perform, in what I thought was a disappointing game on Monday made worse by the fact that we now appear to have lost Raj Sharma for the rest of the season.
"I do not want to take anything away from Studley as they deserved it on the night, and the referee was not responsible for us conceding two sloppy goals on Saturday. But no one can tell me that it is acceptable for a player to be taken out by a quite appaling foul which goes largely unpunished, yet on Saturday we suffer a double sending off in a game in which there was hardly a bad tackle.
"Of course there are some excellent officials, and some clubs and players are their own worse enemies, but like players there are some bad ones too and it always seems to be the ones who want to draw attention to themselves that are the worst.
"There is also a reluctance to deal with serious intimidation, both from players and managers, rarely have I seen any action taken by officials and not for the first time we have lost a player due to serious foul play, but get the book thrown at us when we step slightly out of line.
"I know I run the risk of being accused of sour grapes, but reiterate, that this has nothing to do with our performances.
"We need to improve on these showings and we expect the players to respond, we have got to be far more decisive when defending set pieces and need to be more ruthless in front of goal, at the moment our play lacks a cutting edge and we need to find it quickly."
Malvern boss Joey Rawle will select from the following for both games: Sanders, Dugdale, Higgins, Damore, Cotterill, Clayton, Davies, Walker, Ward, Phillpotts, Shepherd, Slade, Upton, Sollis, Cannon and Thomas.
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