South slip up narrowly in sunny Malvern

South visited the well appointed ground of Malvern RFC in the latest round of Midland 1 fixtures. Changes through unavailability and suspension had to be made with Steve Martin and Richard Bailey coming in for Rich Lang and Matt Thomas. Mark Lord assumed the captaincy from suspended Mike March who was promoted to an Adam Sandleresque "Water Boy" role with Sam Badham playing 6. John Hemsley continued at Lock with Ash Stevens making a welcome return from long term injury to the bench.
The start of the game was a disaster as South were still on the minibus with Malvern racing into a 15-0 lead by the half hour mark. Their haul of two tries, a conversion and a penalty showed how they have improved since the home game in October.
The tide began to turn soon after Malvern winger and try scorer Tom Beechey was sin binned for interference at a South penalty. Mark Lord cooly stroked over the resultant penalty against the blustery wind and South were rolling. A Lord crosskick failed narrowly to find Richard Bailey on the left before a fine Keiron Collins break resulted in Tom Armstrong knocking on with the line at his mercy.
Malvern responded with a Chris Hooper penalty before the rampaging Chris Bale scoring wide on the right with Lord landing a fine conversion.

Half Time 18-10 in Malvern's favour, but game on!

With the wind South immediately took the game to Malvern with continued forward pressure leading to a Mark Lord try (courtesy of a massive hand off) under the posts. He landed the straightforward conversion to take South within 1 point of the home side.
However, momentum was lost with a Chris Bale sin binning (which lasted at least 15 minutes), the lineout stuttering and the awarding of 3 kickable penalties to Malvern. On the hour Hooper landed one of those kicks to extend the Malvern lead to 4 points.
From that point on, however, South were in total ascendency and were camped on the Malvern line for the rest of the game. They threw the kitchen sink at the home side with penalties, scrums and wide play continually battering the Malvern line. Kris McFredries, Rich James, Jim Matthews Dom Green and Chris Bale were all held up short by some heroic, if somewhat illegal, defence. For all the South effort the home side somehow held out to celebrate at the final whistle.
It was a good game played in a fine spirit by both sides, generally refereed well by Craig Wilson, but ultimately South could and should have been victorious. They should take some solace in the fact they got closer than Chester, Hinckley and Kenilworth on their visits to Spring Lane this season.

Man of the Match: stand in captain Mark Lord.

Team:

Martin (Stevens), Bailey, Armstong, Collins, Nicholson, Lord (c), McFredries, Bale, Sands, Badham, Hemsley (Cartwright), Matthews, Bayley, Green, James.

Unused replacement: Fincham.

Match report:Phil Lord