THE Spring Lane crowd were treated to a roller-coaster ride of emotions as Malvern fought back to beat Newport 22-15 in national Three Midlands.

After a few opening salvos from both sides, a Malvern run from defence resulted in a poor pass being hacked on and chased with the Newport scrum-half Warrilow winning the race to score and set up an easy conversion for Tanumi.

The Fijian increased Newport’s lead 10 minutes later with a drop-goal and the visitors kept pressure on Malvern with a series of kick-and-chase moves.

However, Malvern’s line-out was showing a vast improvement and Dave Smith and Gareth Taylor stole opposition ball all afternoon.

Just as Malvern started to achieve some dominance, a poor clearance was hacked on for centre Clymer to score an unconverted 35th-minute try.

Malvern skipper Phil Rawle rallied his troops into action. They caught Newport offside, the penalty was put into touch and, from the line-out, the ball was whipped to Tom Beechey to run in a try.

The start of the second-half saw Richard Fleming putting in some strong runs, holding the ball up well and also using his boot to good effect.

The home pack drove to the Newport line and won a five-metre scrum, where Newport infringed despite being warned by the referee, who had no hesitation in awarding a penalty try. Hadkiss put over the conversion and Malvern scented blood.

The Malvern backs were able to run some good moves, Ed Binham breaking well and Fleming again to the fore. From a line-out, the ball was sped to Beechey to score and give Malvern the lead.

Malvern won yet another line-out and put in a leg-pumping forward drive for Andy Murphy to put his side seven points clear.

Dominic Murphy was then sin-binned and Newport tried desperately to search for an equalising score.

Needing a converted try to do so, they played out the rest of the game in the Malvern 22.

Malvern held on, though, to secure the win and a four-try bonus point to climb out of the bottom three.