Birmingham Moseley were left to rue their defensive ill-discipline as they succumbed to a last gasp Leeds Tykes try, in a game that ended twenty-one apiece.
Jon Callard, Director of Rugby said: “Credit to the lads, I questioned them on Thursday, and they responded excellently. Today we left nothing out there.”
Tighe Maxwell-Whiteley converted Matt Burke’s short range surge, ending Leeds Tykes series of league defeats. The visitors were undone by a series of technical infringements which saw them reduced to thirteen men in the closing stages.
The home side began brightly with Maxwell-Whiteley kicking three penalties in the first twenty-one minutes to give his side a cushion.
Moseley’s only riposte in the first half came from Ratu Bulumakau, who outpaced the defence to dot down Daniel Lewis’ delicate grubber into the corner. The flyhalf was unable to convert, giving a halftime score of 9-5.
The visitors took the lead for the first time when Lewis found himself in space to get on the end of Ollie Stedman’s audacious cross field kick: he converted his own score.
Leeds looked dejected when Lewis added a further penalty to make it 9-15 with a quarter of the match remaining. However, Leeds’ fullback Kieran Davies galvanised his side, sidestepping his way round the outside of the defence to score in the corner.
Lewis added two further penalties to wrestle back control for Moseley. Not to be outdone, the Tykes held their nerve to steal a share of the points with the last play of the game.
“We should’ve taken a few more opportunities, but to fight the way back we did great.” explained Callard who added: “Credit must go to the coaching staff. They did a great job this week getting the boys prepared to pull out a performance which was worthy of a win. All in all, we’ve had a good week and it’s going to lead to better things.”
Final score 21 – 21
(HT 9-5)
Our scorers