MALVERN Seconds made the short trip north to neighbours Bromsgrove on a fine if blustery Saturday afternoon and, in keeping with recent encounters, both sides served up a hard-fought entertaining display.

BROMSGROVE II 45pts, MALVERN II 32pts

Evenly matched packs competed hard, Malvern's backs, prompted by half back combination of Dave Green and Adam Dixon, showed plenty of adventure while the home side's attacks comprised entirely of Gary Owens.

First score went to the hosts. Malvern's defence were unable to take an up and under flight and the bounce fell neatly for the home winger to score a converted try.

The visitors replied within minutes, winger Ben Ash intercepting a risky miss-pass to run in unopposed. Dixon converting.

The Spring Lane outfit then lost influential skipper Vince Hill with a facial injury. Richard Finch filled the gap.

Bromsgrove's backs continued with the kicking game and scored following another punt, the conversion followed to make the scores 14-7.

Following good pressure from the visitors, Chris Smith stole the ball well at a lineout. The Malvern pack set up a good drive for Owain Wynne to crash over.

Both sides exchanged penalties before the hosts' blindside flanker scored the first of his four tries with a crashing run. Breaking the tackle in midfield he surged through to score to the noisy delight of the local support. The conversion on the stroke of half time put the Finstall Park outfit clear at 24-15.

The restart saw changes in the Malvern line-up with Grant Fraser replacing Dixon at fly half, Finch giving way to Wynne who moved to lock, Phil Snare taking his place in the back row. The pace of the game increased and the visitors' pack began to dominate with powerful driving mauls pushing deep into opposing territory. Tom O'Brien joined the line from full back and chipped through cleverly for the impressive Will Clee to outpace his opposite winger to score under the posts. An easy conversion followed.

The home side had no reply to Malvern's better scrum and lineout, but scored twice, both as a result of the visitors' inability to restrain Bromsgrove's flanker, whose pace and power took him through to score in quick succession.

Malvern responded well and a well worked try followed, with a drive sucking in the defence and their backs using the space created to set Adam Nicholl free. His converted try narrowed the gap, but the home side saw the ball fly hacked through, their flanker winning the race to restore the points differential.

However the visitors had virtually all the play in the last ten minutes and an excellent forward's try followed with the ball carried strongly into the home 22, before Wynne powered through to score his second of the game as full time arrived.