AMPTHILL took another giant stride towards the title with a maximum points haul in the Midlands.
But director of rugby Mark Lavery was far from happy with his side’s performance, calling it sloppy and loose.
The visitors ran in six tries – two for former Moseley man Joe Bercis, but they were made to work hard for their win. “To be honest I thought we were sloppy, loose and were completely off plan for about 60 minutes of the 80”, Lavery admitted.
“It was disappointing but the important thing was to get the five points and we’ve done that. We had a poor 40 last week and a poor 60 this week and we have to reset as we have two big games coming up. “We’ll take it on the chin and dust ourselves down.
We were frightened to death by Park last week so we weren’t complacent and I thought we came out the blocks OK but we’ve then backed off and it’s honestly not good enough.
“Defensively we were poor but we’re still there.” The visitors were the better side in the first half and went in at the break with a 21-7 advantage.
A trademark catch and drive try from Aleki Lutui handed them the lead after just seven minutes with James Pritchard kicking the first of five successful conversions during the afternoon.
Moseley hit back through an excellent Chris Brightwell try four minutes later only for Ampthill to cross the whitewash twice more before the break through Sam Hanks and Bercis who took advantage of some slipshod tackling to dot down between the posts.
That try just before halftime was a cruel blow on the hosts but they hit back early in the second half with back-to-back tries to close the gap to just two points.
Joe Wrafter bagged the first following a catch and drive from the Birmingham outfit before fellow front row Ryan Roach dotted down following a spell of pressure on the Ampthill line, Sam Hollingsworth with one of the conversions.
But having been knocked back, the visitors regrouped and two tries in six minutes midway through the half from Bercis and second row Carl Burgess put them back in control.
It had looked as though Moseley had chalked up two bonus points when flanker Graham Geldenhuys powered through to score, hurdling the final defender on his way the line, but there was to be a sting in the tail when replacement prop Karl Gardside rolled over a minute from time, Pritchard’s conversion completing the scoring.
The home side pushed for a way back into it but were held up under the posts and had to settle for a just a point heading into their two final games against relegation rivals Cambridge and Caldy. Moseley head coach Collin Osborne was disappointed with the final result but praised his players for their efforts in pushing the league leaders all the way.
Osborne said: “I couldn’t fault the boys for effort and I’m disappointed not to get two points out of it.
“It did look as though we’d got over at the end but it seems he’s been held up and that was a bit of a kick in the teeth because to come away with two points was no more than we deserved.”
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