Results tagged “Moseley” from Birmingham Post - Sport Blog

Gareth Taylor finds positives in Saturday's 15-9 defeat at London Welsh and feels the benefit of the squad's pre-season preparations.
But the Moseley captain also admits his men need to be fitter if they are to successfully adapt to the law changes having lost their shape at crucial junctures at the weekend.

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It's that time of year again. Wimbledon is over, the rain continues unabated and the strawberries rot on the plant in the downpour. Ah the British summer.

Except, of course, the twice weekly two-hour long heat waves that miraculously appear between 7-9pm every Tuesday and Thursday when most over-weight, unfit rugby enthusiasts are embroiled in what is widely known as pre-season training.

It should really be called pre-season draining for there is no other way to describe the sensations associated with the unwelcome return to physical exercise. My personal favourite is the giddy feeling associated with rising vomit and overheating heads that feel as though they are going to explode. The puke usually wins.

Amidst all this widespread misery, however, there are a few individuals who have never been happier. They are the suppressed sadists, frustrated personal trainers and wannabe sergeant majors of the world or - as they are otherwise known, the conditioning coaches.

Like most self respecting torturers they spend a considerable amount of time devising their strategies. They begin with a starting point of effect - 'Make the buggers sick' - and construct the cause around it. Here are my five of my least favourite pre-season routines.

I can't claim to have met all the mal-adjusted psychopaths in the sport so perhaps you'd like to add your own.

Having managed to work Bob Dylan into a cricket piece here a couple of weeks ago, let's maintain the sport and music motif, shall we? And let's talk about rugby grounds.
I spent last weekend in Wales and the West Country, watching the peerless Bruce Springsteen in Cardiff on Saturday night (quite wonderful, thank you; an uninterrupted three-hour set and a five-track encore comprising Jungleland, Thunder Road, Born to Run, Rosalita and American Land more than made up for the great man arriving on stage 45 minutes late).
The concert was held at the Millennium Stadium, somewhere I've only previously seen from outside but which is a remarkable piece of work.

In the last eight months I've watched nearly forty games of rugby in person and countless others on television and, though I can't be 100 per cent sure, have probably seen more than 150 tries scored.

The other day at Goldington Road someone asked me which is the best try I've seen this season and I had to be honest and say I couldn't recall one that stuck out head and shoulders above anything else.

Given the itinerant nature of my job - I watch most sides quite regularly but none week in week out, it occured to me the quest to find try of the season should probably start with the playes, officials and supporters of our local clubs.

Dan Norton has scored a couple of crackers for Moseley as have James Aston and Uche Oduoza for Bees. Of all West Midlands National League sides Coventry probably integrate forwards and backs better than anyone else which means Butts Park must have seen a few quality ones.

And even though Stourbridge's season ultimately ended in the disappointment of missing out on promotion they have had some great fun along the way,.

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that this is the best job in the world. I've been a sports fan all my life; one of my first memories is being in floods of tears the night England's footballers went out of the 1970 World Cup in Mexico City; one of my favourite memories is watching from the press box as Tamworth won the FA Vase at the old Wembley in 1989; one of the things I want to do before I die is watch a Major League Baseball game in the United States.
I get paid moderately well to spend my working hours reading about sport, looking at pictures of sport, talking about the best ways to cover sport in The Post. I work with people I like who (mostly) share my love of sport and, yes, I do very, very, occasionally get into sports events for nothing.
And now, the editor's gone and made the job just that bit better by asking me to blog about sport.