Fresh start for Moseley
By Roger Clarke, Evening Mail


WITH the paint hardly dry on the posts which have just been installed at Moseley's new ground at Billesley Common, fly-half Ollie Thomas has wasted no time in getting in kicking practice.

The club have been tenants at Birmingham University's Bournbrook ground since they sold The Reddings in2000.

But now they start a new era in their recent troubled history next season with a ground they can at last call their own, albeit leased from Birmingham City Council.

The turning point probably came last season, a year before the new pitch, when Moseley finished third in Division Two.

This was a young side improving match by match and they ended the year with a 31-16 defeat at champion's Doncaster but with enough 'what-ifs' and 'if-onlys' to have left the side feeling aggrieved that they had not grabbed the second promotion slot from Newbury.

Promotion was not on the agenda for director of rugby John Beale and coach Ian Smith last year. The duo had wanted to go back to basics to build a side capable of sustaining a challenge for honours and this coming season Moseley, a year on, start as one of the favourites for promotion.

Thomas, star goal-kicker and fly half and just back from Argentina and Uruguay where he has been touring with England Counties, has nailed his colours firmly to the Mosley mast. He admitted to having been approached by other higher division clubs but said: "I wasn't really that interested."

Thomas, only just 22, deserves the chance of displaying his talents at a higher level, and in an ideal world, that would be with Moseley.

This article was posted on 28-Jun-2005, 20:47 by Hugh Barrow.