Moseley 46 Orrell 7
All season, Moseley have eschewed discussion of results in favour of an assessment of performance; yet at a soggy Billesley Common on Saturday, and for the first time in a while, it must be said, they got both.
Disgruntled with their endeavours in the victories over Redruth and Henley, the runaway National Two leaders can look back on this seven-try demolition with huge satisfaction.
Admittedly, the opposition were not the world's best but given the conditions - the omnipresent sweeping wind and enveloping rain - and the stage of the combatants' respective seasons, Orrell might have turned out to be the proverbial fly in the ointment.
But they were not afforded the opportunity as Moseley squished the visitors inside the first minute, toyed with them for an hour and finally put them out of their misery in the last ten minutes with three punishing driven line-out tries. That final assault only served to make the score a more accurate measure of the distance between two clubs operating at opposite ends of the table.
While the Lancastrians return to Edge Hall Road wondering how to bridge the ten point-gap between them and safety, the hosts now have four opportunities to seal the one win they need to guarantee promotion. They will expect to claim it in, of all places, Halifax, next weekend.
Typically, there were words of caution from Moseley head coach Ian Smith, who pointed to Blackheath's unlikely success against third-placed Esher as evidence that even the league's most unfancied dogs have their day.
That should not faze this team, however. Moseley have now won ten games in a row, appear to have found the form to match their status in the table and have already proved their mental fortitude on numerous occasions this season.
The return trip from Yorkshire on April 1 should, therefore, see much fooling around for players and supporters alike but, in the meantime, Smith has to decide who leads the band over the final few yards of the procession.
Ollie Thomas, at this level a virtuoso of a fly-half, has called the tune for most the campaign and while his contribution as a place-kicker has done much to put Moseley in their current position, the rest of his game has been inconsistent.
The other option is Greg Macdonald, who orchestrated this beating of Orrell magnificently. Concerns over his goalkicking were allayed as he landed five of eight attempts in less-than-ideal weather.
And for the most part, his game management was extremely good. More often than not, he employed foot and hand at the correct junctures and kept nudging his team up the pitch.
Most overlaps were accepted and most touchlines were found, so he can be proud of his afternoon's work. Smith was certainly pleased.
"Greg is just one player, but he allowed the team to play a little bit," he said. "He did exactly what we asked of him and moved the ball when it should have been moved."
The sight of Thomas standing on the wing as a blood replacement for Carl Colvin, while Macdonald conducted proceedings inside him, was just a tad painful. When he came on for Andy Reay in the 69th minute, Thomas looked like a man with a point to prove.
The rest of the team were like that from the start. Barely a minute had passed when Colvin ran back a loose clearance, blazed round his marker with ease and released Mark Evans for the first of his two tries.
The most obvious sign that all was working well came on eight minutes when Neil Mason crashed close to the posts and Macdonald whipped the ball wide for Nathan Bressington to feed James Rodwell for a second score. Moseley were motoring.
Dean Bick and Macdonald added ten more points as a 22-0 lead yawned in front of Orrell. Their response was a decent Chris Briers try five minutes before the interval.
But the second period was one-way traffic and the hosts' superiority was summed up when Bick's replacement, Adam Caves, took a scrum against the head with fellow front-rower Neil Bayliss in the sin bin.
The try of the match came just short of the hour as Mason slipped through one tackle and popped up the ball for Andy Binns to send Bressington over.
Caves then put his own stamp on proceedings towards the end by converting two catch-and-drive routines. He looked as though he had grabbed a third in the last minute, though the score was eventually awarded to Evans.
Macdonald's sideline conversion completed an afternoon that was made more memorable with the news that Esher's slip-up had given Moseley a 16-point lead over third place.
Which should mean next week's debrief in Halifax won't be about how Moseley played, but how they're going to celebrate a return to National One after three seasons out.
