THE grassroots rugby season begins this weekend and Malvern RFC will kick-off their Regional 2 Midlands West campaign with a trip to Hereford.
Malvern go into the opener on Saturday slightly undercooked after only one game of pre-season, which was last week's 36-10 defeat at Ledbury.
Cancellations have hampered their preparations but there will be little time for excuses on Saturday when the real stuff begins at rivals Hereford this weekend.
Malvern and Hereford both won in the away fixture last season, so Vern at least travel knowing the last time they played at Wyeside, they were 33-12 winners.
But it does look like a big ask on paper given the limited game time Malvern have experienced in the build-up.
However, new forwards coach and former Worcester Warriors number eight Morgan Monks is expecting a big reaction on Saturday after the display at Ledbury.
"There were positives to take at Ledbury, but they were well drilled and obviously played a couple of games before playing us so it was a tough ask.
"They did their homework and you could tell. But for a lot of our boys, that was their first run out.
"There is a lot to learn but we have to take the positives from it, it was a very valuable 80 minutes at least.
"We need to have some good training sessions and then it is straight into the game on Saturday. Hereford need no introduction, they will be very well drilled like Ledbury were.
"They will have plenty of big ball carriers, they will be fired up, but so will we.
"We won't change our way of doing things, we will focus on the things we need to learn from and we will be ready to fire into it Saturday and it's going to be an exciting season."
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