Match report

10 October 2010

Ledbury 7 - Moseley 12

On a fine sunny morning it was time to face the team that knocked us out of the cup last year, with a little help, it has to be said, from the referee!!

So it was important that we competed and put the record straight. And compete Ledbury did. After a slow start, Ledbury found themselves on the back foot, but the defence was outstanding, MOseley were continually pushed sideways across the pitch and escorted into touch. The trouble then was that Ledbury struggled to win lineout ball. Ledbury struggled in the rucks aswell, due to poor body positionsand a bit of sleepiness!

Ledbury weathered the early pressure and grew in confidence. Posession started to come Ledbury's way and the game moved onto the Moseley 22. The ball was not well controlled from the back of a scrum, and a wayward pass did not go to hand in the middle of the pitch. Moseley showed how dangerous turnover ball is, and gathered the loose ball, charging forwards, moving the ball across the pitch, and after two or three phases crossed the line to score the first try. They missed the conversion.

In previous years this might have opened the door for the opposition and ended in a heavy defeat, but Ledbury responded well, and put pressure back onto the Moseley pack. Ironically, despite lots of possesion, Ledbury's try came from Moseley posession. Good pressure was put on theMoseley backs, and an intuitive run from Steve Evans resulted in an interception and he ran in from the half way line, and converted to give Ledbury a deserved lead.  Half Time.

The half time talk revolved around how we were going to get ball out to our dangermen in the three-quarters, but despitethis plan, it never quite happened as well as it should. Will Dzioba was back to his best with some searching runs from No8, but we ran out of support too often and some basic handling errors let us down.

Having said this, Moseley never looked like scoring in the second half, apart form one good angled run from their centre, who cut through a weak Ledbury defence to touch down under the posts.

Ledbury had chances to take the lead again, but time eventually ran out.

Moseley played a good game in the right spirit, their supporters were good company on the touchline and it was good to be able to compete in a thoroughly entertaining game of rugby.

This performance shows what we can do this year with a bit of self belief.

Bad luck lads!