WITH Sam Hardcastle, George Blakeway and David Llewellyn all unavailable, Tom O'Brien has stepped into the breech to fill the scrum half position for Malvern.
A product of Malvern's youth system, Tom won many junior honours, narrowly missing selection for England Schools. He is now at Brunel University and plays for London Irish in their development squad.
However, Malvern's director of rugby David Robins had the foresight to register Tom as a Malvern player earlier in the season and he made his first XV debut against Spalding last week. The bonus is a proud father on the sidelines to urge him on as dad Henry is the first team manager.
Malvern's injury list continues to be a worry, although the clouds show signs of lifting. Llewellyn has had a bad reaction to his achilles tendon injury. He is seeing a specialist in London and hopefully will be back in training within a month. Full back Richard Wylde is making good progress after his hamstring injury and resumes light training soon, hopefully to be back in contention by the end of January.
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