By Mark W-J
January 14 2010

Weather permitting, London Welsh and Moseley will meet on SUNDAY at 2pm for the fifth time in eleven months. The last four meetings – two each in league and cup – have produced a total of 238 points, with Welsh picking up three wins, while Moseley’s 40-10 win at ODP in October 2007 is their biggest away win in the league since they returned to National One after a three year absence in 2006.

NOTE: THIS MATCH HAS BEEN MOVED TO SUNDAY AND IS SUBJECT TO FURTHER PITCH INSPECTIONS
  

Last season started and finished with meetings between the two clubs.  A last-gasp Paul Sampson try, converted by debutant Aled Thomas, secured a 15-9 win at Billesley Common in August, while the meeting at Esher in May saw Welsh claim a 50-37 win, scoring seven tries to six.  And to think, the season used to run from September to April…  Four of the visitors’ tries that afternoon came from dual-registered England Sevens winger Dan Norton, bringing his total for the season to 10.  This season he’s back at parent club Bristol, for whom he has already bagged 11 to make him the league’s top try-scorer.

The reason for the rearrangement at Esher was, of course, that the game at ODP in December was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.  There was some disquiet from visiting officials and supporters given that the game wasn’t called-off until after the Moseley players had arrived, but Welsh insisted that they had acted by the book, and that both captains must be consulted if the game is to be postponed within two hours of the allotted kick-off time.  The standing water was caused by a sudden deluge which had no time to drain before 2pm - a rare occurrence indeed, given that the pitch is laid upon eight feet of sand.

When the clubs were drawn together in the quarter-finals of the National Trophy, Moseley offered to play the game at ODP as a league-and-cup double-header.  Welsh weren’t keen on the idea, and the rearrangement of the league fixture became more difficult with Mose’s march to the final at Twickenham.  At the semi-final stage they were drawn at home to Exeter – coincidentally another league fixture which had yet to be fulfilled.  The Chiefs were happy to play the double-header, but were comfortably beaten, 32-24 – they finished the afternoon facing another season without silverware, and coach Peter Drewett was relieved of his responsibilities soon after.

The mood of Moseley followers on that soaking December afternoon 13 months ago wasn’t helped by the recollection of another last-minute postponement in January 2003.  On that occasion, however, it was the Moseley captain who refused to take to the field, blaming an area of frozen ground in the shadow of the stand.  Referee Sean Davey and Welsh skipper Matt Fitzgerald had no option but to agree to the postponement, which the visitors later admitted was partly motivated by having travelled with a squad weakened by injury when they were embroiled in a relegation battle.  Welsh won the rearranged fixture 29-0, and Moseley were duly relegated alongside Rugby, with just four wins from 26 games – two of them over the hapless Lions.

Welsh and Moseley have – so far – only one league match each to rearrange, whereas the more northerly teams, in particular, have suffered much more during the recent freeze.  Yorkshire rivals Rotherham and Doncaster each have three fixtures to be fulfilled, as have Birmingham & Solihull, who switched their home game with Bedford a fortnight ago to the Blues’ Goldington Road.  Billesley Common was due to host the Bees’ match with Nottingham last week – the Green & Whites have four games to be rearranged – but that, too, fell foul of the weather.

Given that the league season is due to finish on 20^th February, with two rounds of the British & Irish Cup before the play-offs start, the possibility of rescheduling all of last week’s fixtures for the weekend of 27^th February has been mooted.  This would have a knock-on impact on the Cup, with Welsh due to travel to Ulster on Friday 26^th February for a potential pool decider.  We are the only two teams in the competition to have collected the maximum 10 points from the opening two rounds of fixtures, having both won at Moseley in November – Welsh by 38-27 and Ulster by 32-22.

Moseley secured back-to-back wins over the holiday period, completing home-and-away doubles over both Coventry and Plymouth.  The win over their local rivals on Boxing Day brought to an end a six-match losing streak in all competitions, while their win at the Brickfields a fortnight ago saw them leapfrog Albion into seventh place in the table.  Fly-half/ full-back Tristan Roberts has overtaken Aled Thomas in the points-scoring charts on 136, while their top try-scorer is winger/ full-back Nathan Bressington with six.  Both clubs have seen 15 players score tries this season, but eight London Welshmen have crossed on more than one occasion, whereas eleven Moseley players have only a single score to their name.