Injury-hit Kenilworth fall to heavy defeat at Moseley

Kenilworth's walking wounded endured another tough day at the office at Billesley Common Rugby Complex, the ground Moseley Oak share with their Championship neighbours, writes Peter Jones.
Ed Hannam is led off the pitch after picking up an injury in the opening skirmish. Picture: Wilie WhitesmithEd Hannam is led off the pitch after picking up an injury in the opening skirmish. Picture: Wilie Whitesmith
Ed Hannam is led off the pitch after picking up an injury in the opening skirmish. Picture: Wilie Whitesmith

Despite having an entire squad of players unavailable through injury, Kenilworth’s scratch 15 put up a valiant fight although ultimately losing out to a bigger and stronger home side.

Typical of the team’s bad luck was that winger Rhys Jones had to pull out during the warm-up having not fully recovered from previous injuries.

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The game started in dramatic fashion with Kenilworth’s Ed Hannam being taken out in the air straight from the kick-off by a Moseley player.

In almost identical circumstances the previous week, England winger Elliot Daly had received a red card and Moseley were fortunate in that the referee awarded only a yellow.

The perpetrator was even more fortunate when the referee clearly carded the wrong man.

Kenilworth created some early pressure which they were unable to convert into points and Moseley then responded with a converted try to give them a seven-point lead.

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Hannam left the field after failing to recover from the earlier challenge to be replaced by substitute Will Blackmore who battled on gamely throughout the match.

Moseley’s forward power produced three more tries but Kenilworth responded with a fine break by their man-of-the-match Bobby Thompson who fed Tommy Jones for a fine try.

The conversion was added to bring the score back to 24-7.

Moseley added a further converted try to re-establish their 24-point cushion at the interval.

After the restart, Blackmore scored a try after a driving maul to bring it back to 31-12.

The conversion was 
unsuccessful after hitting a post.

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Moseley suffered another yellow yard for persistent infringement and from a lineout Jamie Mapletoft brought some encouragement to the Kenilworth faithful by touching down.

However, despite hard work from Chris Pemble, Nick Collett, Will Johnson and Raj Bahey and some fine tacking by Josh Hickman, Mikkel Anderson, Tommy Pumba Jones and Harry O’Brien, Kenilworth were unable toprevent further scores.

And an injury to Pemble and the loss of Hannam failed to add to Kenilworth’s Christmas cheer in the run up to the festive season.