MALVERN RFC went to Stafford on the back of a well-won game against Newbold the previous week in Midlands Two West.

STAFFORD 25pts, MALVERN 21pts

The home team were fourth from bottom with a less than impressive record and should have been a source of two away points.

Although Malvern started brightly, Stafford went ahead, with a Mottershead penalty in the eighth minute, then made the Malvern pack work hard for good ball, much of which ultimately came to nothing until the quarter-hour mark.

Nick Smith, playing against his hometown club, made good ground and the ball sped out to Steve Ott who ran in to score then convert.

Three minutes later Ott put over a penalty to put Malvern 10-3 up and they started to run the ball at Stafford, pinning the home side back in the last third of the field.

Stafford's only foray for some time allowed Mottershead to pull back another penalty, but Malvern continued to press. However, territorial dominance led to some sloppiness, as portrayed by a quick throw followed by a showy back-flip which, instead of finding it's target, was seized on by Mana Begbie, who ran a try in from halfway for Mottershead to convert and take back the lead for Stafford.

Suddenly the home team were galvanised and, tails up, they took the game to Malvern either side of half time, increasing the lead with another try from Begbie.

Twelve minutes into the second half and the Stafford loose forwards took the ball on, riding half-tackles for flanker Murcott to go over and Mottershead's conversion leaving Malvern at least three scores behind.

At last Malvern started to shake themselves out of their complacency, starting to look like a team rather than a collection of individuals. With ex-England Schools scrum half and flanker Owain Wynne and Alex Thomas on, the team's spirit rose as Stafford were forced on to the defensive.

Ott clawed back three points from a penalty, Malvern attacked the line and went over from a catch and drive move for Wynne to score. With five minutes left, another Ott penalty pulled Malvern back to four points behind, signalling an all out effort to pull the match out of the fire. When a scrum was awarded, albeit to Stafford, in front of the home posts, Malvern's late dominance gave the loyal travelling support some hope. However, a thoughtless comment to the referee saw a penalty awarded against Malvern instead, and with it all hope of rescuing the match.

An extremely disappointed David Robins saw the setback as being due to a lack of cohesion.

He said: "When we gave away a silly try, Stafford started playing like a team, whilst we were very disjointed and made many basic errors. This is a wake-up call - we cannot become complacent when we still have to play most of the top teams twice. We should have learned from last year that, at this level, the lower sides are still good enough to spring a surprise.

"Although our halfbacks did reasonably well, we are missing the Davies/King combination and with all due respect to several players today, we were looking like a patchwork side. A great plus were the performances of Nick Smith, tireless as ever, Shaun Lancett and Nick Major, who showed a lot of class on his debut."