MALVERN travelled to Belgrave's North Leicester ground aware that this could be a game full of pitfalls, the East Midlanders playing for Midlands Two West league survival.

Starting well, they worked the ball to the home 22 metre area, Jon Owen popping up on the wing but being denied a rare try as he was bundled into touch five metres out. The feisty Belgrave side battled downfield and forced a hasty clearance, then won a scrum from which they spun the ball wide to score and take the lead.

Malvern fought back after the restart, pressurising the home defence and winning a penalty, Longley scoring, after a high tackle on Ben Hughes.

This signalled a period of spirited play from the Malvern forwards, Short, Taylor and Ridley to the fore, then after Belgrave broke out once more, the ball was cleared, Malvern attacked and Kristoffersen broke to feed Sparrey, who danced through the home defence to score and set up Longley's conversion.

From the restart Thomas, back after a month, put in a big hit on the Belgrave number eight, a scrum was won and Taylor took on the Belgrave defence, making the ball available to be fed to the speeding Rob Young who ran in to give Malvern a 15-5 lead at the break.

After a typical half time pep talk from coach Rudy Smith, the Malvern pack resorted to the game plan of playing it tight on the narrow pitch, forcing a Longley penalty two minutes in, the making a series of onslaughts into Belgrave's territory. However, hooker Handy was sin-binned and the home side came back with determination and Malvern became rather sluggish in their response, missing crucial tackles, and the Leicester side scored twice to take a 19-18 lead against the out-of-sorts leaders.

With five minutes left, Malvern put in a final effort, Longley breaking from defence to set Young off on another electrifying scoring run to get the champions out of jail. The crucial two points were won, giving Malvern a potential four point cushion at the top, but the performance worried both players and Director of Rugby, David Robins.

Mr Robins said: "We have been forced through injuries and absence of key players to field people out of position. This has affected our defensive work over the last few games, as shown by the number of points conceded, and we must work hard on this in training. Our errors today, together with several below-par performances, made Belgrave look better than they are, but the key point is that we are playing poorly but still winning.

"However, with only two home games and four away to complete our programme we will have to regain top form to achieve our goal of promotion. We must re-learn how to retain possession, good basic rugby can win us the league."

Tomorrow (Saturday) Malvern face a tricky away League fixture against Wolverhampton at Castlecroft.