Shipston continued their fine home form and strong start to the season with a dominant display against Malvern RFC on Saturday, delighting the large home crowd with a 90-0 victory at Mayo Road.

There were a couple of changes to the side this week, as Sam Treadgold was rewarded for some excellent recent form with a start in at hooker and Chris Close came onto the bench t cover the front row for his first Rams appearance of the season.

Playing up the slop in the first half Shipston were quick to settle into the game and exerted their dominance right from the kick off. The forwards won the battle up front in the scrums and the backs looked sharp, playing with pace and accuracy, which set the tone for the big win. The first try of the match was scored with just a matter of minutes on the clock, with Matt Daniells gathering an excellent kick over the op from scrum half, Connor Hutchison to race into the corner for the opening score. Tate O'Donovan (who had an excellent day off the kicking tee) secured the extra 2 points with a successful conversion and the Rams lead 7-0.

There were further scores from Tate O'Donovan himself, Ben Harris and two for skipper Robbie Faulkner in the first period to ensure that the Rams had secured the try bonus point and went into the break leading 33-0. There was some excellent play in the first half, with both forwards and backs linking well and the likes of Charlie Hutchings, Bertie Taylor and Sam Treadgold were doing some fantastic work up front to secure the ball for the hosts.

The second half continued much in the same vein as the first and Malvern were finding it difficult to create anything meaningful in front of a solid Rams defence. The visitors continued to work hard and push for something throughout the full 80 minutes, which is a huge credit to them, but they were unable to get on the score sheet.

Shipston added a further 9 tries in the second half through Connor Hutchison (x2) Chris Cummy, Tobi Faulkner, Ben Harris, Ollie Windebank, Dan Taylor, Fergus Smithers and Sam Treadgold to wrap up a comprehensive victory. The Rams moved the ball well all game, using the full width of the pitch and played with a tempo and intensity that had been asked of them in training all week.

There were a number of excellent performances for Shipston this week, with Connor Hutchison having a brilliant game at scrum half and Ben Harris and Dan Taylor working really well in the midfield. The MOTM this week however was awarded to Sam Treadgold, who was solid in the set piece and worked tirelessly around the park in both defence and attack and was rewarded with a try of his own for his efforts.

The win sees Shipston sitting in third place in the league currently, having won 5 out of the first 7 league matches of this campaign.

There is a free week this coming Saturday (2nd November) but the Rams return to action on the 9th where they travel to Old Halesonians RFC