MALVERN’S director of rugby Dave Irish will ring the changes for tomorrow’s North Midlands Shield quarter-final against Old Yardleians at Spring Lane (2pm).

Skipper Luke Milton is unavailable but prop Tom Mann and scrum-half Laurie Essenhigh are likely to be drafted into the squad.

Irish expects an intriguing contest against their Midlands Two West (South) rivals, who lost 44-31 on their league visit to Spring Lane earlier in the season.

He believes confidence is high in the Malvern camp after last weekend’s 29-10 league triumph at Spartans.

“We are looking forward to the cup game,” said Irish.

“We had a competitive match against them in our second league fixture.

“I think we were 24-10 down at one stage before hitting back to win.

“It was a close encounter but I expect both sides to make changes for tomorrow.

“We have an opportunity to look at a few players.

“Mann, who has played with Warrington and moved to the area, will be on the bench and I have heard good things about him.

“Essenhigh has been out for four weeks with injury and he’s likely to be on the bench too.

“We have a few people at the autumn internationals, including Milton, who will be watching England face the All Blacks, and this gives us an opportunity to move things around.

“A few players are back from university, who have all played first-team rugby, so we haven’t got any major issues.

“I am looking forward to it — we have lost just one league game so far against Pinley and confidence is high.

“We are trying hard to create an atmosphere and culture for home games where we will be hard to beat at Spring Lane and turn it into a hard place for opposition teams to visit.”

Malvern maintained their promising form last weekend to end Spartans’ 22-game home winning streak.

“To go to a home fortress like that and take the points shows great determination, especially as the conditions were not ideal,” Irish said.

“Our fitness and mobility allowed us to dictate large swathes of the game and, in truth, we weren’t completely at our best, butchering some clear-cut scoring chances.”

Irish is keen to make the Shield semi-finals and won’t be taking Old Yardleians’ challenge lightly.

He added: “We are not under any illusions about how hard this match is going to be and it’s important we are fully switched on.”