It was a muddy and triumphant affair for Birmingham Moseley on Sunday with a big home win against Shelford. Moseley went into the match unsure of what to expect from a changed Shelford side, but had their heads in the game and went out with their sights set on victory.

Despite the slippery conditions resulting in a few dropped balls, Moseley managed to get the first points on the board with an early try out wide, miraculously converted by Clare, hitting the cross bar and bouncing over. Shelford soon responded with a very well-worked catch and drive from a lineout 10 metres out, drilled over the line by their forwards as Moseley were unable to hold off the downhill momentum.

But Moseley were having none of it and began their scoring streak. Continuous hard lines from centres Liss and Rosa and speed on the wings and from full-back Ruth together with some great support play across the field enabled Mose to outpace Shelford and keep the tries coming in, bringing the half-time score to 26-5.

Now their turn to play downhill, cheeky out the back-door offload from Emma at 10 and a clever break straight through the middle from flanker Clare to score right under the posts got Moseley off to a cracking second half.

The forwards were certainly doing their bit, with Nat at 5 and Amy at 3 managing to break through the gainline to make metres for Moseley on several occasions. Sham was in her usual beast-mode and turning over great balls left, right and centre whilst prop Nic put in an excellent performance all over the park and stretched over the line to get her own name on the scoresheet and earn herself Forward of the Match.

Her first full game playing 10, fly-half Emma distributed some solid balls and managed to dive over a pile of forwards to score and bag herself Back of the Match, with a pint also for winger Hannah Girdlestone on her debut.

The full-time whistle went and it was off to the showers with a satisfying 62-5 win under our boots. No amount of blood, sweat and mud was going to stop anyone having an after-match cuddle with captain Karen's newborn twins (and Moseley Rugby's newest additions) James and Maeve. An enjoyable game with some great team and individual play from both sides, always a pleasure to play against the nicest team in our league Shelford! And hats off to their fullback putting in key try-saving tackles and putting in 100%