Moseley captain Neil Mason wants his side to put up a real fight at Nottingham
Dec 11 2009 by Brian Dick, Birmingham Mail
MOSELEY captain Neil Mason has warned his team-mates they can have “no excuses’’ when they visit Nottingham on Sunday.
The Billesley outfit are without a win since early November, a run they need to break to ensure they are not sucked into the bottom four.
They stand three points above the cut-off point and have struggled to turn in performances in both halves of their most recent matches.
Much of that has to do with the fact they have found it difficult battling against the elements at Billesley Common as wind and rain have exacerbated the challenge of playing up the slope.
Although Mason accepts the difficulties involved, he also feels the forwards could do with more help from the backs and says that must start this weekend in the less-inclement environs of Meadow Lane.
“We go there knowing it is going to be a battle for 80 minutes,” the in-form blindside said.
“We won’t have any excuses, it’s a football stadium so the surface is brilliant, there is no slope, we have got to go and play.
“We need to play more sometimes. We want to go out and play like the way we used to, but we just seem to have stopped.”
Mason found last weekend’s loss to Cornish Pirates especially heart-breaking.
After playing through the pain of one dead leg, the flanker picked up another that eventually forced him off the field.
Although he has recovered for this weekend, the scars of defeat still hurt as Pirates came back from 19-0 down and scored the winning try two minutes from the end.
“The first half was positive but some tactical decisions which we took in the second half were not correct and we need to improve on them,” he said.
Much of that comes down to the play-calling at fly-half where Tristan Roberts has been reluctant to set his backline moving.
He will have to do that against Nottingham, however, with their reputation as a difficult side to play against and one that enjoys slowing down opposition ball.
Unfortunately, Roberts won’t be able to call on the services of Charlie Simpson-Daniel.
The fleet-footed wing has opted to commit himself to playing scrum-half and has gone to Cinderford for game-time.
