Moseley stalwart Andy Binns has revealed he will take what could be his last season on a game by game basis as he looks to recover from a career-threatening back injury.
The 32-year-old underwent surgery on the condition in June and although he is pleased with his progress and has played every minute of the club’s two pre-season matches, he is unable to guarantee he will be able to last the entire campaign - his 14th with the club.
There was a suggestion Moseley’s record appearance maker might have retired at the end of last term as he missed several games due to the problem but his off-season operation went so well and his recuperation is ahead of schedule.
That means with resources thin in the back three positions - Binns is the only recognised full back in the squad - the veteran is almost certain to start in the 2008-09 curtain-raiser at home to London Welsh this weekend.
But whether he is present for the last game in Manchester, on April 25 next year, depends entirely on whether the problem recurs.
“I never said last year was my final year, it was purely based on my consultant’s advice,” he said. “I don’t want to make a big thing of it this year and say it’s my last one. I’ll just see how it goes. If I have problems again I’ll probably call it a day in midseason. I am just going to take it as it comes, play as many games as possible and see how far I get.
“If it flares up again I’ll probably call it a day, to be honest it’s almost on a game by game basis. I’ve come through the two games with nothing more than the stiffness a 32-year-old bloke playing rugby gets.”
Indeed Binns believes he is well placed to return to competitive action despite missing the most intensive part of the club’s summer preparation programme. But the win over Ebbw Vale and 73-7 battering by Worcester last weekend, in which Moseley conceded 11 tries, has left him confident in his fitness.
“It has been good that I have thrown in at the deep end,” he said. “I have turned up and played 80 minutes in both matches - which probably wasn’t the plan. But we have not had a great squad of backs at the moment but that has helped me get the fitness having missed some of the work the lads put in earlier in the summer.”
Having been with Moseley since 1994 Binns, and played a big part in their unexpectedly high finish last year, Binns knows improvement in an increasingly professional division will be hard to achieve but he recognises one area that must be bettered.
“Because we put a good run together at the end, we ended up coming tenth having flirted with the bottom two or three for most of the season,” he said. “But we need to improve our home form. If someone said to us we’d win as many away games as we did last year we’d probably take that. We won in places we’ve hardly ever won before like Plymouth and Newbury.
“We have to get better at home. We didn’t win enough and play well enough. We saved all our poor performances like Launceston, Bees in the cup and London Welsh for our home crowd.”
Indeed, Moseley won just three times at Billesley Common all season, one of their many defeats coming against a Matt Jones-inspired Exiles side. The former Welsh international has gone to Worcester but Welsh have spent lavishly in the summer and have gone full time in a bid for a top six finish.
