Sat 16 Nov 2019, 15:00
On a day everything "clicked" Cambridge came away with their first win at Moseley, coming away with a convincing bonus point earning 6 try victory.
Compared to our last visit in December last year, when cold and driving rain made playing and watching very unpleasant, conditions were good with no wind or rain, but the pitch was quite wet with Birmingham having, like much of the midlands, had a lot of rain in the week.
We didn't get off to the best start. A few handling errors gifted Moseley possession and territory and after 10 minutes we found ourselves a converted try and a penalty down. However, these 10 points were to prove Moseley's last reward of the day as Cambridge dominated the next 70 minutes.
After applying pressure to the Moseley line a number of infringements led to a Moseley yellow card for prop James Tideswell. Cambridge elected to scrum against an 8 bolstered by a Moseley back and after another infringement preventing a certain try we were awarded our first penalty try of the season. Our scrum was to prove solid all match and went on to provide a great platform for our talented backs to exploit.
Immediately from the restart, the ball went out wide to James Martin who used his pace, power, and balance to beat a number of Moseley defenders to go over in a fine 60m solo effort. The try was converted by Ben Penfold who was perfect from the tee all afternoon. 10-0 down had switched to 10-14 ahead in the space of 3 minutes.
The next try came from Joe Tarrant on 34 minutes, after a short period of broken play, he showed pace to run in under the posts from 30m. The conversion again was successful.
While 10-21 ahead may sound comfortable, anyone who has watched Cambridge recently will have seen us lose such leads and so when Moseley camped out on our line in the final 5 minutes of the half the small band of travelling supporters were nervous. But the Cambridge defence, which was solid all afternoon, held out and the half-time whistle blew. On a day that saw us score 6 tries this defensive effort was perhaps the most significant part of the match allowing us to start the second half on the front foot ...
... Which we did. Playing up the slope in the second half, we kicked well, ensuring we played much of the second 40 minutes in the Moseley half. As a result, they hardly looked like scoring. As they got looser, looking for opportunities to break out, we turned over the ball and our sharp backs were able to take advantage.
The next score came from Matt Dawson, who spotted a hole in the Moseley defence picking up the ball from a ruck, running straight and touching down over the try line.
A penalty from Ben Penfold made our lead 10-31 (still not comfortable for this particular supporter).
The final two tries were scored by Matt Hema (after which I did begin to relax) and at the very end by Jake McCloud.
And so the final score was 10-45 with 6 tries scored. In fact, it could have been more, with anAndy Henderson try disallowed for a forward pass, James Martin coming inches short of the line, and Rob Conquest fumbling a catch that would have given him the easiest score of his career. Credit though to Rob for being in position to take the pass late in the match, and credit in general to the players' conditioning in not letting up their intensity at all in the second half.
There was a lot of post-match discussion about who deserved man of the match. This was inconclusive - an indication that every one of the 20 players played their part in a fine performance.
Tries: Penalty Try, James Martin, Joe Tarrant, Matt Dawson, Matt Hema, Jake McCloud
Conversions: Ben Penfold (5)
Penalties: Ben Penfold (1)
