QUORN 4, MALVERN TOWN 2

MALVERN Town made a trip to high-flying Quorn in Leicestershire on Saturday and returned home with a 4-2 Travel Factory Midland Alliance defeat.

Straight from the kick off the ball was played out to Quorn's right and the winger proceeded down the flank before putting in a wicked low cross on the wet surface and Lee Dawson was waiting in the middle of the box to tap in from close range.

Malvern bounced straight back and within the next five minutes had two good chances to equalise but Phil Preedy's shot was saved by keeper Matthew Nurse and Des Cox's shot-cum-cross was fingertipped over the bar by Nurse with Wes Joyce waiting behind in case the keeper failed to deal with it. In the 10th minute Cox shot wide from outside the area and six minutes later Rikki Halion's shot went across the goal.

However in the 26th minute a long ball across the pitch found Quorn's leading goalscorer Joe Jonas who duly drilled the ball home. Nine minutes later Paul Wyatt, in the Malvern goal, made a good save to prevent Quorn increasing their lead.

Malvern continued to press searching for the goal before half time to get them back into the game and in the 40th minute a throw was headed on by Joyce to Cox whose shot was blocked by the keeper. In time added on Malvern lost possession on the edge of the opponents' penalty area and a long ball out of defence found Jonas who skated past Dave Cannon and ran on to the edge of the box before firing an unstoppable shot into the top corner of the net.

Ten minutes into the second half the ball was played to Cox who cut in and shot just over the bar. The game was restricted to the middle of the park with neither side creating many further chances until the 74th minute when the ball was played for Wes Joyce to run on to.

After deceiving the keeper he was brought down for a penalty which he duly converted to make his personal tally seven goals in four games for Malvern.

In the 88th minute the Malvern defence failed to clear a cross from the right and Ricky Nurse headed in from close range to restore their three goal advantage. But only for a minute as, from the restart, the ball was played up field Joyce, he knocked it on to Morris who played it back to Phil Preedy, who weaved his way past two defenders before slotting the ball home.

Still Malvern pressed and in time added on a corner was cleared out to Phil Preedy whose shot went just over from 35 yards.

The victory took Quorn to the top of the table with Malvern dropping down to 10th.