By ANDI STARR
GIVEN the rain over the previous few days - so much so
that Notts County's game on Saturday had to be called off -
conditions were not exactly conducive to Nottingham's running
game.
But their hard earned 18-9 win over Midlands rivals Moseley was
enough to lift them into second place in the Championship
table.
It wasn't pretty, and it was short of the recent standards the
Green and Whites have set themselves.
With the wind behind them in the first half it was the visitors
who were first to threaten, a multi-phase attack taking them deep
into home territory before a knock on handed the initiative back to
the Green and Whites.
Moseley then stole Nottingham's first lineout, only to turn the
ball over.
As they continued to have the better of things Ollie Thomas missed
a couple of penalties, whilst a couple of Nottingham attacks came
to nothing courtesy of handling errors.
It was 16 minutes before James Arlidge finally opened the
scoring with his first penalty attempt.
A sustained attack from Nottingham brought consecutive
penalties, but as the pack drove for the line they were held up by
the determined Moseley defence.
And when they regained possession the visitors broke well to
force a third penalty, a change of kicker bringing their first
points of the day as Glyn Hughes levelled the scores five minutes
before the break.
But with a minute of the first half remaining the Green and
Whites got the opening try as Tim Streather beat a couple of
tackles and raced into the 22 before sending Alex Lewington clear.
Arlidge's conversion attempt hit the post and so the Green and
Whites led 8-3 at half time.
The set pieces, particularly Nottingham's, were a bit messy all
afternoon, and that opening try came from the first completed scrum
- for either side.
The opening minutes of the second half saw Nottingham reduced to
14 men as Dan Montague was sin-binned, Hughes bringing Moseley back
to 8-6 with the resulting penalty.
His third kick gave them the lead, only for Arlidge to restore
Nottingham's advantage with his second penalty of the
afternoon.
After David Jackson had gone close Nottingham got the decisive
try on 63 minutes when Streather broke through, Arlidge
making it 18-9 with the conversion.