Dudley Kingswinford 41, Malvern 19.

MALVERN suffered their fifth defeat of the season in the National Three Midlands at in-form second-placed Dudley Kingswinford. While the visitors started sluggishly, the home side took the ball on from the kick-off, winning a penalty to open the scoring.

In the sixth minute, a penalty kick took DK deep into the Malvern 22, the resultant catch- and-drive ended with a home scrum.

From this, ex-Worcester and Coventry playmaker Jon Higgins nipped through a static Malvern defence to score a converted try.

Malvern then took the ball into DK territory, but two kickable penalties were missed which would have brought them back into the game.

Outside-centre Adam Billig then made good inroads but having released the ball, the opportunity was wasted. Malvern were made to pay as the technically-gifted DK pack took the ball on a Malvern put-in and fed it to inside-centre Stefan Shillingford who scored after a dummy scissors move.

They followed this up with a running move by the back line for a third try by Ian Langford on 21 minutes, then secured the bonus point five minutes later with a kick and chase try from Farrington.

Malvern were being outplayed up-front and secured little good ball, but when they did get it in hand, they looked dangerous.

Having decided to salvage something from a game already looking lost, they moved the ball at pace and Luke Milton joined the line to score in the corner on the half-hour. This made it 27-5 at the break.

Malvern started the second period with great resolve and battled into the home 22.

A penalty followed by a catch- and-drive seeing Chris Griffiths go over in the corner and Adam Dixon converting.

DK responded when Higgins again called a play which saw Shillingford take a delayed pass to wrong foot the defence and score a converted try.

Malvern kept plugging away after weathering more DK pressure and a Dixon grubber kick saw Milton speed through to collect and score to make it a more respectable 34-19.

However, as Malvern tried to finish the match in style by running the ball with an overlap from behind the goal-line.

Jon Tideswell intercepted a lofted pass to touch down for a final converted try.