Blaydon 25 Birmingham Moseley 12

 

A sterling first half effort in defending against the powerful Moseley pack that restricted the visitors to only a handful of opportunities was continued after the break, leading to a grandstand finish and 5 vital league points. In what was a tremendous all-round team performance much of the finale was generated by winger Dan Marshall who cut the Moseley defence to pieces time and time again.
A delighted director of rugby Micky Ward said afterwards “We’re playing well at the moment in attack and were really strong in defence today. We had threats on both wings and Dan Marshall was electric, when he’s playing with confidence there’s not many can touch him”.
Blaydon opened the scoring in their first real attack on 18 minutes with Marshall and Joe Smith, the other winger, combining to take play into the 22 for the forwards to hammer at the line. When they let it out Matt Thompson found the unmarked Jason Smithson with a long pass and the No8 simply strolled in, Brett Connon concerting
The advantage lasted only 7 minutes when Moseley got the drive on from a line-out for hooker Adam Cave to be bundled over. Fortunately he had been held up, but from the penalty the visitors repeated the move and this time the score stood.
And that was it to the break with Blaydon leading 7-5 but 3 minutes into the second period Marshall picked up on half-way and set off at speed down the right to score in the corner without a hand being laid on him. In the 54th minute Moseley grabbed their second try however, a very similar effort to Blaydon’s first with Drew Cheshire throwing the long ball to the unmarked Ed Sheldon.
The scores were level but a Connon penalty edged Blaydon back in front and going into the final quarter it looked to be nip and tuck to the end, only for Moseley to completely fail to cope with the rampant Marshall.
In the 71st minute Smithson eased pressure on the home line when he stormed out of the 22, Nathan Horsfall took it on to find Marshall on half-way and once more the winger set off at speed to show another clean pair of heels to the visitors defence.
Three minutes later the result was settled when Marshall yet again took them all on and was deep into the 22 before moving it along the line for Andrew Davidson to send in Smith in the other corner to touch down the bonus point try.

John Brennan