MALVERN Town continued their impressive run of recent form with a vital Banks's Premier Division victory at home to third placed Wolverhampton Casuals on Saturday.

MALVERN TOWN 1, WOLVERHAMPTON CASUALS 0

The game's only goal came in the 20th minute when Chris Thomas latched onto a superb through ball from Dene Whital-Williams and outpaced the visiting defence, before firing home inside the far post.

Although Town were without the influence of skipper Sean Cotterill and with Raj Sharma on the substitutes bench - both falling victim to a flu bug - Malvern were always the better side.

Overall chances were few and far between, which was not unexpected against one of the tightest defences in the League, whilst the Malvern back four dealt comfortably with the prolific Neil Jones and were rarely troubled by ex Stourport Swifts striker Curtis Barnes.

Town though had to thank Ross Sanders in the 70th minute when he pulled off an excellent save from a seemingly goalbound shot from the edge of the area.

Town then replaced Thomas with debutant Kevin Jones, recently signed from County Sports, and it was an eventful few minutes for Jones as he almost got himself on the score sheet, when his fierce shot went into the side netting and then found himself in the referee's notebook following a fracas.

In fact as the visitors became increasingly frustrated they resorted to some heavy handed tactics which saw four yellow cards with Malvern's Whittal - Williams and Andy Shepherd booked for retaliation.

Malvern Town: Sanders, Higgins, Clayton, Hayes, Damore, Maidment, Walker, Whittal-Williams, Thomas (Jones), Shepherd, Slade. Subs not used: Williams, Sharma.