TOWN moved into the Third Round of the Smedley Crooke Memorial Charity Cup, with this comfortable success at home to Alveston on Tuesday night.

MALVERN TOWN 4, ALVESTON 1

On a bitterly cold, misty evening, Town, showing a number of changes from the side that defeated Heath Hayes on Saturday, were very slow in getting out of the blocks and it was the visitors who twice spurned good chances to take an early lead.

Neither did things get any easier for Town, when defender Pete Roberts had to leave the field after only 11 minutes with a nasty cut to the head which required hospital treatment.

Just three minutes after Roberts departure, a catalogue of errors eventually led to Alveston taking an unsurprisng lead.

Soon Malvern started to put Alveston on the back foot and efforts from Lee Hooper, Luke Willetts, Adam Baldwin and Rik Halion, all might have secured an equaliser, but it was Hooper who eventually levelled matters, when he drilled an excellent shot home from the edge of the box in the 36th minute.

Malvern went up a another gear at the start of the second period and virtually made the game safe within five minutes of the re start.

First Luke Willetts brushed aside his marker to place the ball expertly past the advancing goalkeeper and in the 49th minute the increasingly beleagured Alveston custodian could only parry an Adam Baldwin effort and Steve Walker reacted quickly to slide the ball home from an acute angle.

It was leading scorer Morris who wrapped things up in the 81st minute, when he headed home a Hooper cross to register his 16th strike of the season and Town's fourth on the night.

After the game Town manager Neil Hunt said: "We struggled a bit at the the start, which was probably due to us making four or five changes to Saturday's side, but we were also guilty of not wanting to make things happen and at half time we reinforced the fact that you have to earn your right to succeed whatever the quality of the opposition and to be fair, in the second half, the team responded to that challenge."