MALVERN director of rugby Dave Robins has warned his side need to be ready for some “close scraps” starting with a derby clash at Luctonians tomorrow (3pm).

An off-colour Spring Lane side saw their encouraging start to the National Three Midlands season take a dent when they crashed to a 10-7 home defeat at the hands of Longton.

Now Malvern face a trip to Herefordshire for the challenge of Lucs.

Robins said: “We have got great respect for Lucs, it’s always competitive against them.

“They have lost their first four league games but they won’t take that start lying down.

“We will have to be absolutely on our game. We’ve not had a bad start to the season, it’s been much better than last year.

“Our record against Lucs over the years has been poor — they beat us three times in the league and cup last year.

“All the signs are that this league is going to be very tight, so we must be prepared for plenty of close scraps.”

First-team v Luctonians (a, 3pm): D Murphy, A Murphy, J Clark, G Taylor, S Robinson, M Humphreys, S Strong, P Rawle (c), J Gwynne, A Dixon, T Beechey, R Fleming, T Hale, L Roleston, D Hadkiss, C Edwards, D Smith, J Thomas. Meet at Spring Lane at 12.15pm, number one dress code.

Second XV — awaiting opponents from the pool of teams (from): T Horne, L Moloney, A Jones, M Williams, C Smith, A Green, S Clark, S Daws (c), J Southall, O Meadows, C Willams, K Harvey, N Clark, S Smith, J Alison, D Allen, G Fraser, G Hardy.

Third XV v Pershore III (h, 3pm): T Wolke (c), M Prosser, A Seymour, G Marshall, D Wolfe, T Hughes, A Hill, I Hill, T Jones, J Harrison, G Plum, B Merrett, M Rees, S Taylor, J Smith. Meet at Spring Lane at 1.45pm.