Post by Communications Team on Jan 18, 2019 20:16:10 GMT
Big Match Preview by Glyn Barlow
Birmingham Moseley v Old Elthamians Saturday 19th January 3.00pm @ Billesley Common
The roller coaster ride continues as the dominant home win against Bishop’s Stortford was followed up last weekend with an agonising 21-20 last minute (plus 14 more!) away loss to Rotherham Titans.This weekend the team have the little challenge of taking on Old Elthamians in a month which will test them against some of the best the league can throw at them.
The London side currently sit in second place just one point behind Blackheath, and on the same league points as Rosslyn Park and Ampthill, having won twelve of their eighteen games to date.
Last Saturday Elthamians overturned Rosslyn Park 28-22 to haul them in regarding league positions, a result that may have gone some way to recompensing for the heavy 41-26 loss to Darlington Mowden Park the previous week and the 11-12 defeat by Blackheath just before Christmas.
The Blackheath result stopped a fine run of results which went back to 6th October for their previous loss 42-38 to Sale. The week before the Sale game Birmingham Moseley made the trip to College Meadow and suffered a 38-27 defeat, a game in which they led at 60 minutes but ran out of steam at the end.
The opening try scorer in that game right wing Dominic Lespierre is currently leading the way in the club in the crossing the try line department, closely followed by full back Tom White who has added to this threat with his ability with the boot. He currently stands second highest for points scoring in the league, behind James Williams. Clearly on Saturday either team transgresses in kicking distance at their own peril.
Turning our attentions to Birmingham Moseley the team will be highly motivated to go one better this weekend against another club currently in the promotion race.
No excuses about last weekend in Rotherham, the team should have won having dominated the set piece, illustrated by Ryan Roaches being muscled over the line for three tries from line out mauls. When you add these to Adam Caves’ four against the same opposition in September you have the unusual statistic that all seven tries being scored against the Titans from the same position.
Some may point to the missed opportunity, in the 78th minute, to push Rotherham back into their own half and the subsequent handling error as the reason the game as lost but in truth this was just the last in a number of occasions throughout the game the team were guilty of handling errors and missed chances.
If the team are to claim victory this weekend they need to continue the good work in the set pieces, demonstrate better game management and avoid forcing passes where ball retention is the more pragmatic option.
Cut out the errors, capitalise on the opportunities and a win is within their grasp.
Absolutely heroic defence of the very highest order from Moseley, unfortunately for most of game. Dropped ball over the line from maul in first half probably cost game (despite Ref awarding try, before reversing)
Numbingly cold, knock ons worse as game went on perhaps understandably.
Opposition are only 1 point off top. Didnt look any better than Moseley.
Agree with Oddsox re the Moseley defence all the game - absolutely superb. Sadly, too many Moseley knock-on's at crucial times in the Moseley attack was their downfall. And the fact that Esher won as well puts Moseley back into the bottom 3 relegation zone. Ah well, that's life and there's always next week.
Come on Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooose.
I had dream.. we win scrum in our 10...we push into their 10....OE infringe....BMRFC pen...JW kicks winning pen....except reality is we get reversed decision for naughty stuff Yellow card and OE get 3 pen.....Nightmare on Yardley Wood Road.....mind you we won on dropped passes...I made it 9....5 in OE half......grrrrrr!
Post by kingsheathlad on Jan 19, 2019 21:27:27 GMT
There must be a few sore limbs after that that defensive effort.We just could get into their half up the slope and any phases we had ended in a knock on on penalty conceded. Lineout not great again. Come on Mose........
Agree with all of the above. Two evenly matched sides and the game won, fittingly, by the most enterprising piece of play. Moseley never threatened in the second half. Assuming that whatever OEs were spraying on their hands was legal, perhaps we should add some to the medics/water carriers. Nevertheless we need to start being on the correct side of close games.
Didnt quite go with Mail report. The reason we seemed shackled in our own half was because we kept dropping the ball...quite often in good attack development moves. Secondly, while OE's were leading 11-10 I wouldn't say their try was " a winning try". Far from it had the last scrum of game not been reversed to OE pen on our 10, I could quite envisage us pushing them into their half... a pen to us.... for James to do his job.
Sweet Dreams are Made of This!
So 1 ( one more than I thought)towards my 10 point prediction..Mowlem,Park,Club,Sale to come. Any new revised point haul from anybody!
