They certainly weren’t at their brilliant best – but promotion-chasing Newport did enough to stay in the thick of the Midlands One title race.

The Fishes won 14-6 against Malvern at Forton Road on Saturday, a result that keeps them three points adrift of leaders Luctonians with a game in hand.

All the points came in the first half, with Vic Van Staden crossing the line after just three minutes. He drove over from a lineout to open the scoring.

A second try arrived half an hour in, Ben Warrilow darting through the Malvern defence from a penalty to catch them napping. Both scores were converted by Jamie Simpson.

“It was a bit of a battle in the second half but you can’t play champagne rugby every week,” said director of rugby Ray Price.

“It was one of those where we had to settle down and get the win and we were delighted to come away with the points.

“We lacked a little bit of cohesion and we tried lots of things that didn’t come off.

“The game showed we haven’t played that much competitive rugby since before Christmas, but we still did enough to win.”

Newport now have two away games in the next fortnight, the second of which is their game in hand at Hinckley.

Price added: “That was always going to be a massive game and now it’s even more important. It’s so close right now and there’s a lot of teams still in it.”

Luctonians extended their lead over the chasing pack to three points with a 17-12 win over Kettering.

It was their third win of the season over Kettering, having also Knocking them out of the EDF National Cup, but they had to come from behind in the second half.

“We have the advantage but we cannot afford any slip-ups,” said Luctonians spokesman Robin East

“We always have close games at Kettering so we were all very happy to come away with a result 

“Our forward power won the game for us in the end when they dominated that last 20 minutes.”

Paul Hulland scored two tries for the Lucs, with Andy Garrod adding the extra points with two conversions and a penalty.

Wingers Cory Robinson and Paul Sumner scored the Kettering tries in the first half, with Tim Jones claiming their other two points with a conversion.

By CHRIS HUDSON