MALVERN Hockey Club's Mens' XI continues to struggle in their debut season in the Coaching Solutions West Midlands League division two.

MALVERN HC 0, NEWTOWN 7

The team's youth and inexperience has made this campaign a difficult one and once again Malvern were on the wrong end of a heavy scoreline.

Right from the off Newtown set about business in a professional, workmanlike manner. With quality running off the ball, dribbling, and pin-point passing, Malvern were pushed out of the game. Newtown took the lead in the first five minutes when Gareth Preece found himself in acres of space behind the Malvern defence, he flashed his shot into left side netting of Jim Boocock's goal.

Two minute later, Newtown doubled their score. A series of short corners were awarded, and on the third corner Nick Bradby found the net with a low driven ball.

The quick goals seemed to shock Malvern into action. Malvern settled and began to play short passing hockey, holding possession of the ball, which seemed to frustrate Newtown. With Newtown's rhythm disturbed Malvern began to counter attack. Excellent work from Brian Crump and John Forecast really pressured Newtown's defence, with the midfield of Alex West and Guy Edgar causing problems in the middle of the park. Despite this Malvern couldn't find the final touch.

Malvern continued to pressure Newtown through to half-time. But with one minute to go to the half-time whistle, Malvern conceded a third goal against the run of play. With a quick counter-attack Newtown caught Malvern with only two men back. A run through the midfield from Richard Jones enabled him to go one on one with Boocock. The Malvern keeper had no choice but to commit to a sliding challenge. Jones held his nerve, and lifted the ball over the approaching keeper to make it 0-3.

The second half started much the same as the first with Newtown adding two more quick goals, another from Jones and a further one from substitute Chris Cookson.

Malvern continued to attack but as the match wore on they began to become tired, making more errors and conceding possession of the ball. Malvern's best attack of the half came as Brian Crump held the ball up on the edge of the Newtown D, Leigh Robinson approached, took a sideways ball from Crump but only found a D full of Newtown bodies to block his shot.

Newtown completed Malvern's misery as the final substitute, Neil Godsell, came on and capitalised from two short corners in the dying minutes. Both low drives into the right hand corner of the goal.

Malvern's man of the match was James Styles.

Tomorrow (Saturday) Malvern are away at Stafford.

Anyone interested in joining the club can contact club captain Leigh Robinson on 0790 3538552.