MALVERN Rugby Club travelled to Tile Hill Lane knowing that Old Coventrians were a more dangerous side than their Midlands Two West (South) bottom place indicated but they came away with a 29-13 victory.

A knock-on by Malvern from the kick-off gave the home side a scrum and they put in a massive forward drive, winning a penalty in the process to take an early three point lead.

The visitors shrugged off this early setback and responded with a fine driving maul of their own. However, they failed to make more headway as OCs managed to halt the advance.

As Malvern started to play something approaching their normal running game, a penalty gave Ben King the chance to equalise and they now put some pressure on the home defence with good movement across the back line.

However, it was one of those days when promising moves broke down at the last pass and enabled OCs to counter with a couple of dangerous moves, which fortunately they were unable to build on.

The home team’s indiscipline carried on with the penalty count mounting in Malvern’s favour and incurring the wrath of the crowd. The Malvern defence was tested and prevailed before they once more went deep into home territory with another penalty. From the line-out, the ball was quickly moved to King and James Southall, pressed into stand-off duties, put in a long run for the line to score and give King the extra two points.

Malvern were now controlling the game and George Withers stripped the ball to put Malvern on the attack again. The ball went along the line for skipper Luke Milton to score and put the Spring Lane men up 15-3 at the break.

Malvern lost tight-head Craig Freeman just before the break with a rib injury, which gave OCs the advantage at the set piece, but not before Malvern had put in some telling phases in the home ‘22’ for Southall to bag a second try and King to convert for a 19-point lead.

The visitors were then put under the cosh and a penalty gave Coventrians some hope.

After a period of desperate defending, the inevitable happened and OCs were awarded a penalty try, the conversion bringing the gap back to only nine points.

Some more good defensive work by Malvern prevented OCs from narrowing the gap even further as they cleared the ball into the home half when awarded another penalty.

From the line-out, Malvern pushed toward the home line and Nick Clarke was on hand to take advantage of some OCs’ confusion to score the fourth try and claim the bonus point for Malvern.

Director of rugby Dave Irish said: “We now host league leaders Old Laurentians. They are going well this year so will prove to be a stern test for us.”