Moseley keen to avenge plundering Cornish Pirates
Dec 4 2009 by Brian Dick, Birmingham Mail
OPERATION Straight Record starts at Billesley Common tomorrow as Moseley begin the second half of their Championship campaign anxious to right a few wrongs.
As well as they did in their first 11 games, winning five and going close in several others, there were also afternoons when Ian Smith’s men let themselves down horribly.
Never more so than on the second weekend of the campaign when they went to Camborne and turned in their worst performance for several years against an in-form Cornish Pirates outfit.
Mose were 38-0 down inside half-an-hour that day, as the Pirates plundered a pitiful defence for six tries in the opening exchanges and the visitors made every mistake possible.
“That game was surreal,” recalls back-row forward Harry Rowland. “No player wants to play in a game when you are constantly turning around and looking at your own posts all the time. It was a horrible experience.”
Thankfully, a shot at redemption is at hand. The Pirates come to Birmingham tomorrow and, while Moseley’s performances have improved and then tailed off again since that day, the Cornishmen are on something of a slide.
They have since lost to Exeter, Rotherham, London Welsh, Bristol and Plymouth and, for yet another season, appear to have flattered to deceive.
Certainly Rowland hopes so. “We are desperate to set the record straight,” he said.
“I can only hope they come here very complacent because I think we are really going to get into them and take some lumps out of them.
“The start is the key. If we can start with the same aggression and fight as we ended the game down there, I can’t see them living with us.
“Everyone knows what we have got to do at the weekend. We are gunning for Saturday to come.”
As they must because they need a good performance after a disastrous start to the British and Irish Cup that has effectively ended their campaign after two games.
In both Pool C fixtures they found themselves three scores down inside 30 minutes and left with a mountain to climb.
At least they have the incentive to avoid that fate tomorrow.
