From Birmingham Evening Mail

Aug 4 2005


THE time has arrived for Moseley to test their steel in battle after a summer of drills, practice and plays.

Coach Ian Smith has been happy with preparations so far. He said: "We are reaching the point now though where we need to have a contest. There is only so much you can do drillwise and skillwise and discuss in meetings.

"You get to the point, particularly with the plays we have got, that they want to have a go, they want to try it out.

"The first couple of games will be frantic because they are so excited to play, it is a question of getting that out of their system in some respects, then settling down and start controlling our rugby."

Moseley, who finished third, one place off promotion, go into the season as favourites to go up. Smith is making sure that his players do not fall into the trap of complacency and says that repeating last year's form is not going to be easy.

"We are not a surprise package any more. We put pressure on ourselves sometimes to do certain things but the other pressures are beyond our control and are not really worth worrying about."

Smith wants to slow down his young charges next season.

"Because we were so young we tried to run the legs off everybody all of the time, but that is not always the way," he said. "We have got to realise there are lots of areas of the game we have to handle and control which can also win you games."

There's also a bit about Bees being tipped for the relegation dogfight!

This article was posted on 5-Aug-2005, 09:54 by Hugh Barrow.