Seagulls a whisker away from an impressive win

PERSHORE 3RD XV 7pts, MALVERN SEAGULLS 6pts

This was displayed once again when they took on a good Pershore 3rd team away and almost caused an upset by nearly sneaking a win, then dressed as Blues Brothers, sang, danced and drank together all evening!

The game started with the home side showing the strongest, stretching the Gulls defence with some solid rucking and penetrating kicks, but for 15 minute they were kept out by some great tackling, Rob Francis, Ian Fox and Carl Demeda showing well for Malvern.

A long period of forward play in the visitors 22 ended in a Pershore prop breaking off the back of the ruck and battling his way over the line for a deserved try which was converted to give them a seven point lead.

As usual this gave the Seagulls a kick start and led to some exciting end to end frantic rugby where Dave Kemp, Jim Hasset, Mike Ferguson and Drew Bruton made good breaks to almost level the scores before half time.

After the break the forward battle became more intense and this increased even more when Malvern converted a penalty through Rob Francis to pull three points back.

Brian Pullen, Mike Calvert and Roger Demeda were deep in the heart of the action with the latter being the victim of some opposition tap dancing on his back which lead to a ten minute sin binning for the Pershore number eight and another three points from the ensuing penalty for the Seagulls.

With the home side struggling to get out of their own half their clearance kicks were being caught by Malvern's ever impressive full back Andy Duggard who, backed up by Ryan Milne, constantly ran it back with interest to set up another attack.

Some valiant defending by Pershore appeared to be wasted when in the last minute the Gulls got another penalty in range of the posts, but the luck went against Rob Francis when the ball grazed the wrong side of the upright ensuring the hard-earned victory went to the home side.