MALVERN'S revival continued with a 25-0 victory over fellow strugglers Stoke.

After a scrappy first quarter, Malvern started to dominate and the front five outgunned their opposite numbers to such an extent that two opposing props had to retire from the field of play.

This meant uncontested scrums for a full hour of the game but before that Malvern had camped out in the Stoke half, sucking in the defence and then passing wide for winger George Roberts to flip a pass back inside to full back Ben Lamb to open the home side's account.

Malvern's lack of discipline at the breakdown continued to give cause for concern as the penalty count again mounted, but Stoke were unable to make any headway.

With the lack of set scrum contests, Malvern had to revert to a more expansive game, using Gareth Taylor's ball-carrying skill and then bringing Adam Dixon's playmaking skills into the game.

The young stand-off had been targeted as a possible weak link by the big Stoke back row, but he proved that size isn't everything as he twice knocked over their big Samoan number eight. Lamb made it 10-0 in the 35th minute.

The second period continued in the same vein. Chris Smith and Vince Hill dominated the line-out and set up repeated forward drives. From one such ploy, Malvern forced a penalty in the 46th minute, with Steve Ott collecting the three points.

Nine minutes later, outside centre Chris Ridgers showed an astonishing turn of pace as he intercepted a Stoke pass and zoomed in from 70 metres, breaking two tackles on the way.

Inside the last five minutes, a line-out peel saw Gareth Taylor set up the drive and the ball was popped up to seasoned lock Hill, who charged over for his first score in six years.

Director of rugby David Robins was delighted with the overall performance, although unhappy about continued lapses at the ruck.

"We can't afford to keep doing this - the higher placed sides will really punish us if we don't tighten up in this area," he said.

"However, the rest of the performance was more like it. Had we been able to continue with contested scrums, I'm sure we would have put over 40 points on the board."