Sat 18 Oct 2025
Stratford 5 - 26 Moseley Oak
Moseley Oak (MOAK) visited Pearcecroft this weekend and with an unbeaten record it was sure to be a tough battle for Stratford despite their home support. Stratford got the match under way, but owing to a 50-22, MOAK put the pressure on early in the red zone. An over-thrown line out, a tap penalty for MOAK and a couple of turnovers each way still left MOAK in prime position.
Stratford were caught out when, as so often happens, a MOAK pass went to ground. Hoping to capitalise, the Stratford Centres rushed up but a pickup on the run from a MOAK player cut through the defenders, stopped just short of the line. A quick pick from the resulting ruck was scored to the right of the posts and with the conversion it was 0-7.
Stratford were defending well, holding MOAK with turnovers and benefiting from knock-ons. The scrums were solid and allowed them to clear the ball out of their half on a few occasions, but line outs were not quite on point. MOAK did score again however with quick ruck speed and hard runners eventually wearing down the Stratford defence allowing them to touchdown left of the posts. Unconverted, it was 0-12.
There was an even more promising moment for Stratford, when instead of winning the ball back and clearing into touch, fly half Luke Jelley threw a wide pass to Dan Whitby who stepped inside his man and made it 15 m before being stopped near the halfway, lifting the crowd. Stratford continued to work their way back into the game and found more yards when spreading the ball further away from the breakdown, the forwards were being outmuscled but the backs were often able to avoid a dominant tackle by good use of their feet.
This theme continued with Stratford enjoying some possession; Nathan Geekie, Charlie Billings and Whitby were more and more involved, and the forwards were securing the ruck allowing Ben Humphreys quick ball. This progressed Stratford into the MOAK red zone on multiple occasions, but the final piece of the puzzle appeared to be missing. At half time, the scores was still 0-12.
Shortly into the second half, a Stratford lineout gone wrong on their 22 saw a MOAK forward go 5m before being brought down and a few phases later a long pass out to the left-wing exposed a gap where the backs, previously in an attacking shape, hadn’t switched to a defensive one quickly enough. MOAK converted their try in off the far post to go 0-19 up.
Stratford were still looking good when on the ball, with Whitby getting around his opposite man numerous times and putting Stratford on the front foot. He appeared to be thriving in the wider 13 channel when he has more recently been deployed at 12. Right-wing Jo Cook, like his opposite wing Billings in the first half, was set away one-on-one down the 5 m channel but the kick ahead bounced to the benefit of the MOAK full-back.
Stratford’s forwards were starting to make progress as well now, with the more dynamic runners taking the ball and the bigger guys focusing on securing any resulting ruck. A promising position was lost in the MOAK 22 with the referee citing early engagement by Stratford on the scrum, possibly a side effect of introducing Dom Leach and Mike Hickey from the bench into the action, keen to make a positive first impression. This period also had the reintroduction of Jake Lowe at nine who quickly got to work ruffling the MOAK forwards.
Despite Stratford’s improvement, an example of it gone wrong resulted in MOAK getting their fourth try of the day. Having worked the space to put Cook in down the right wing once more, when the ball went left out of the ruck, one of the MOAK forwards read the next pass and thanks to a scrambling defence, they were awarded an attacking scrum 5 m from Stratford try line. The potential high contact in the ruck that allowed the scrum was let go by the ref. The score was now 0-26 but one would be forgiven for thinking it was a lot closer than that.
After the game got going again, a MOAK clearing kick was taken well by Cook and Stratford moved into the MOAK half. With Geekie, Gwilym Davis and Luke Jelley all capable fly halves, in the backline Stratford were testing the MOAK defence and getting around the edges. Having moved the ball coast-to-coast a few times, Whitby was put in down the left channel and bumped off an attempted tackle from the last man to ease round the corner and in towards the posts. With Whitby unable to convert his try, the game ended 5-26 five minutes later.
Though not named specifically up till now, James Walton was rewarded for his hard graft over the 80 minutes as the player of the match award was given to him jointly with Whitby. Despite the scoreline, Stratford did grow into the game and will take many positives from it, travelling away to Malvern next week with hopes of getting back to winning ways.
Stratford XV: 1. Michael Dawes* 2. Ben Cole* (C) 3. Tom Stanley* 4. Zak Amond* 5. James Walton 6. Laurence Birch* 7. Dom Wan* 8. Jamie Jones* 9. Ben Humphreys 10. Luke Jelley 11. Charle Billings* 12. Gwil Davis* 13. Dan Whitby 14. Jo Cook* 15. Nathan Geekie* 16. Dom Leach 17. Mike Hickey 18. Jake Lowe
*Denotes product of Stratford minis and juniors
