MALVERN laboured to a 13-10 home win over mid-table Nuneaton Old Edwardians in Midlands Two West (South).

The fourth-placed Spring Lane side needed to get back into the winning habit after the previous week’s 44-10 defeat at Newbold-on-Avon.

The scoreline will show they did that but it proved to be the proverbial game of two halves.

Forced changes meant skipper Luke Milton moved to stand-off and James Southall to full-back.

Malvern started brightly, putting Old Eds under pressure from the off.

It finally paid off when Laurie Essenhigh, making his first start at scrum-half, broke and found Tom Hale to take Malvern to within five metres of the try line.

The ball was moved quickly across the field and Will Clee ran in the opening score but Ben King’s conversion attempt from wide hit the post.

After Nuneaton missed an easy penalty attempt, they ran the ball at Malvern but the final pass went forward.

Essenhigh took a quick tap penalty to take play to within 10 metres of the try line and Old Eds killed the ball with King despatching the penalty with ease.

Much of the intervening play was scrappy as rain had made conditions slippery but Malvern tried to run the ball.

Good defence from the hosts in the middle of the park kept the Warwickshire side in check.

Nuneaton had a scrum on their own five-metre line but Malvern stole the ball and it was moved smartly across to Hale, who sped in to put them 13 points clear at the break.

The second-half saw the hosts again start well but they looked to have lost much of their early shape as the game progressed.

They struggled to get over the gain line and the visitors pulled back three points with a penalty.

When Malvern replied with a fine drive to the opposing 22-metre line, the referee blew for a knock-on although the ball clearly went backwards.

They then made life even harder as Old Eds started to put good forward drives together.

Winning the ball in their own 22, Malvern elected to kick upfield and chase when a safety-first approach of finding touch would have been the better option.

The ball was fielded and Nuneaton ran it back to score a try under the posts with the conversion taking them to within one score.

With their tails up, Old Eds piled on the pressure and Richard Fleming was sin-binned to give the Malvern support a nervous last five minutes.

Desperate defence saw them emerge victorious but needing a rethink.

Director of rugby Dave Irish said: “Overall, we were worth the win but we need to continue our pressure game for the full 80 minutes.

"Being 13-0 up at the break was OK but not great and we need to put more points on the board and not relax until the final whistle.

"There were a few changes, which caused a few stutters, but we still took four points from the game.

"We now have a week off before visiting bottom side Old Coventrians and then the visit of unbeaten league leaders Old Laurentians.

"We will be training hard to work on several areas, which need improvement.”