MALVERN Rugby Club lost 18-8 to high-flying local rivals Bromsgrove when the two National Three Midlands sides met at Spring Lane.

Bromsgrove arrived as clear favourites, but were shaken from the first whistle as Malvern turned the ball over for Richard Fleming to race in for a second-minute try.

This was the signal for the league leaders to go on the offensive — their forwards off-loading well to gain ground and feed the speedy back division.

Long gone are the days when Bromsgrove would have buckled under an early set-back and, from the re-start, Wayne Cooper charged down the Malvern kick for touch and, supported by the pack, exerted such pressure that a kickable penalty was conceded. Ollie Bache’s kick went narrowly wide, but the visitors would not be denied.

Bromsgrove kept Malvern pinned in their own half. Chris McGregor drove into midfield and, when Bache broke down the right wing and threw a long pass inside to Buck Byron, only excellent defence prevented a score.

The visitors kept up the pressure, snuffed out all Malvern’s attempts to break out and when the front row showed some determined ball-carrying Byron was able to put Oliver in for a close-range try to level the scores.

The missed conversion meant the game was on a knife-edge, but Bromsgrove kept the ball to hand and with excellent linking between backs and forwards looked to be in control.

The Bromsgrove pack put in three consecutive rolling mauls and appeared to have scored via number eight Drew Harper, but the referee was unsighted and disallowed the try. As the Boars continued to put pressure on Malvern’s defence, hooker Andy Murphy was sin-binned in the 23rd minute and the hosts did well to repel further assaults on their red zone, while down to 14 men.

Malvern had hardly been out of their own half, but Fleming had a good chance to score his second but, after chipping ahead, was just beaten to the touch down by an alert Tom Millen.

Bromsgrove then missed two penalties and at half-time there was still all to play for.

Another Malvern attack ended with Adam Billig chasing a fumbled ball and collided with the full-back. He sustained a leg injury and had to be stretchered off as the first period came to a close.

After the break, the visitors again took control and a tap-penalty from Worcester Warriors academy scrum-half Joel Dudley set up Wayne Cooper for what looked to be a certain try only for the ball to be knocked-on with the line in sight. Bromsgrove then capitalised as a Malvern clearance kick from outside the 22 went straight into touch. From the resulting line-out, Harper bulldozed through for a try, which was converted by John Critchlow.

As Malvern came back into the game, probing at an increasingly uncomfortable Bromsgrove defence, Adam Dixon put over a penalty but the pendulum again swung away as loosehead prop Dom Murphy was sin-binned.

Bromsgrove made the man advantage tell with captain Toby Wilson producing a characteristic break to feed Rhys Pritchard, whose quick pass to lock Cooper set up Harper for his second score.

Although Malvern spent the last 10 minutes pressing hard in Bromsgrove territory, they weren’t able to turn pressure into points and the leaders maintained their position at the head of the table.

The post-match consensus was that, good as Bromsgrove were, Malvern were not far behind them.

The Boars’ back row were in fine form but the high scoring backs were kept in check by some tenacious Malvern tackling.

However, playing for a quarter of the game with 14 men put them at a disadvantage which was difficult to overcome.