Make or break for Malvern as Burton seek revenge
Apr
When Malvern visited Burton’s Peel Croft ground earlier in the season they stunned the Staffordshire side’s large and vocal crowd into silence with the biggest home defeat they had suffered for many years. According to Malvern Director of Rugby David Robins, that has spurred Burton on to focus on thoughts of revenge when the return match is played at Spring Lane this Saturday. “We have some links with Burton and some intelligence is fed back to us. With nothing to play for in the league, the word is that they are all out to atone for the 42-17 reverse and have been psyching up their players accordingly.”
With Malvern needing to win this game and the final away fixture at Solihull to make sure of automatic promotion to Midlands One, a lot rides on the Burton fixture for Malvern. “In truth, we haven’t put in such a complete performance since that day, with injuries and loss of players overseas disrupting the squad. However, we managed to keep winning and keeping our noses in front of the pack until the Bromsgrove defeat. “continued Robins. Now we only have a one point cushion and my early season predictions that the league would go right to the wire have materialised. Our season now stands or falls over the next 160 playing minutes – we don’t want to be forced into a play-off game over in the East Midlands. “
Robins had some good news for the Malvern faithful as he announced that influential ball carriers Gareth Taylor and Owen Jones, both out for over 6 weeks, return to the squad for Burton. “We have missed their contribution lately, and with Tim Streather returning from other duties we will be putting out our strongest combination for some time. We had a great training session on Tuesday and the Worcester Academy backs Coach Matt Sherratt putting our three quarters through their paces on Thursday. This underlines our growing links with the Academy, from whence we have had Streather and George Crook join us this season. We look forward to featuring more young talent over the next few years as we offer invaluable match time to emerging players...”
Robins and his squad look forward to a big turnout of the Malvern faithful for the final two games. “We have a Former Players lunch on Saturday, and hope that our usual crowd will also be swelled by some of our less frequent visitors. We also urge all our fans to come to Portway next Saturday for the final showdown with Solihull.”
