MALVERN Rugby Club grabbed a nail-biting 21-19 win at home to Kenilworth in a thrilling Powergen Midlands Two West top of the table encounter.

The visitors took the lead against the run of play in the 12th minute but Malvern went on the offensive and won a penalty, which Andrew Longley put over.

Kenilworth again stretched Malvern's defence to score again in the 17th minute but Malvern hit back to regain control and Longley dropped a goal to pull back another three points.

The second half began with Malvern once more in control and starting to play with much more fluidity. On a third phase play, Kiwi stand-off Will Smart fed Andy Longley, who in turn put Gareth Richards through. He looked to have been caught but the police officer's "long arm of the law" stretched out and grounded the ball for a fine try.

Longley's conversion took Malv-ern to within a point of the Kenilworth total.

Tails up, Malvern went on the rampage, Longley joining the line and putting Richards away to split he defence and put skipper Dave Irish over to take the lead, on the hour.

With a Longley penalty two minutes later after a blatant offside, Malvern were eight points up and looked to have the game in the bag.

However, the lively visiting backs had other ideas and with five minutes to go Middleton scored in the corner to bring them back to within two points and set up a tense final period. The referee added eight minutes of injury time and Kenil-worth won a penalty 45 metres out to give Kendall an opportunity of winning the match, but he miss-ed.

n Also in action in Powergen Midlands Two West were Broms-grove who won 27-19 at home to Nuneaton Old Edwardians while in the same division Hereford narrowly lost 25-24 at Stoke-on-Trent.

n Upton were beaten 7-0 away at Redditch in North Midlands One.

During the first half the home side had two unsuccessful penalty kicks playing down the slope while Upton had a try disallowed from a pushover attempt and Max Edwards was ushered into touch just a metre short.

It was all square at the interval but Upton's trusty Rob Heeley missed a penalty on the hour mark.

From the 22 metre restart, Redd-itch broke and scored the decisive try.

n In North Midlands Two Stour-port shared the points in a 7-7 at Stourbridge Lions.

n Pershore lost 15-10 to Stratford in Midlands Three West South. Pershore's first try was from a blind side break by Martin Hope, who drove through three tackles but was stopped short of the line. His back row colleagues Watson picked up and crashed over. The conversion failed. Stratford hit back when Tripp went over. But Pershore stormed back and Hope scored. The conversion failed again. In the second half Pershore lost a little of the control they enjoyed in the first half and when Stratford's backs again cut loose Jones scored. With a successful conversion it meant they took a slightly undeserved lead. With Pershore going flat out for a win they conceded a penalty to take Stratford further ahead.