After guiding his side to their eleventh consecutive win and a return to National One, triumphant Moseley captain Gareth Taylor lauded his teammates for the progress they have made in the past year.

Taylor's side secured promotion on Saturday with a 22-9 victory at Halifax by producing a gutsy display against dogged opponents and in difficult conditions.

Although it wasn't a particularly pretty performance, the skipper was delighted with his team's efforts and suggested their counterparts of 12 months ago might have perished in such a trying situation.

But this Red-and-Black vintage is made of sterner stuff than the one that finished third in National Two in 2005.

That side, which featured three-quarters of the players that claimed promotion at Ovenden Park, did not have the mental fortitude of the present squad and ended up losing critical matches at the business end of the season.

"This was a game that Moseley of last year might have lost," Taylor said yesterday. "There have been a number of those in our run-in.

"We lost three of our last six last year but now, we have gone from Christmas unbeaten and have dropped one point from ten games.

"That is a testament to the lads' focus and determination to do well. That was shown up there in Halifax.

"It is a really, really good place to come and get promotion. Good teams win on good days, but the really great ones win on days like that, when all the odds are stacked against them."

According to Taylor, a big factor in the club's transformation has been a close-knit team ethic, with well over half of the side that started Saturday's game having been produced by their own youth system.

"The camaraderie is brilliant," the scrum-half said. "The average age is 25 or 26. I have only known these guys three or four years, some of them have been together for eight years and grown up with each other.

"Even when we lose, there are no sad faces because we know what to do the following week. We get together on a Tuesday and go forward. The training is good, the focus is good and the attitude is there every single week.

"It's the most fun I have ever had playing rugby, even in the low times when we lost to Launceston."

And what has set Moseley apart from Esher and to a certain extent, second-placed Waterloo, has been their relentless consistency.

They have lost only two league games in the entire campaign and are presently riding a club-record unbeaten run that stretches back nearly four months.

"Since Christmas, I cannot fault the guys, everything has come together really well," said Taylor.

"But it's come through hard work, it hasn't just happened. Right from the kit-man to the people who come and watch games, everybody comes together to produce a result like that."