Operation Inset resumes at the Richmond Athletic Ground this weekend as Moseley return to Championship action against London Scottish, a match made all the more significant by the Red and Blacks' last outing.

That came against Leeds a fortnight ago and culminated in a 38-12 hammering and an ugly performance made all the more incongruous by the beauty of the setting.

Indeed it was difficult not to leave Wharfedale's picturesque little home deep in the Yorkshire Dales feeling like Moseley had come up from the big city and fly-tipped 80 minutes of rubbish. Not that the locals were complaining.

Displays like that mean somehow sides tenth-placed Moseley feel they should be beating, especially at home, have escaped them. Leeds are fourth, Nottingham are third, Plymouth fifth and Cornish Pirates sixth. The less said about a return of one draw from the four league matches played at Billesley Common the better.

With Jersey and Doncaster beneath and two points behind them Moseley's season is far from at crisis point but even those within the camp admit time is starting to press.

Mose have this weekend's clash with the Exiles - always spicy affairs - and one with Rotherham on Saturday week before they reach the midway point of their campaign. A campaign in which, with the rightful removal of relegation play-offs, there are no second chances.

"We know we shouldn't be where we are, we have made life a little bit more difficult for ourselves but we are certainly not worrying about our league position," centre Charlie Hayter insists.

"It is not going to affect the way we play or the way we do things, it's not panic stations at all. It's get back to what we know we are good at and the results will come."

And that's why this year's exercise can be termed Operation Inset. Moseley's youngsters are learning on the job, indeed only six or seven of the side that started against Leeds can claim to have considerable experience of life in English rugby's second tier.

Worryingly some of those less-weathered prospects came off the pitch a couple of weeks ago looking as though they needed a week off and a little bit of guidance. Hopefully they have had both.

No-one could accuse them of a lack of effort, indeed Kevin Maggs's squad seems to relish a scrap, but some of their decision-making betrayed a dearth of circuits around the Championship block.

Particularly in what has become known in modern rugby as the 'red zone', the final quarter of the pitch where possession and position are turned into points. Unfortunately for Moseley, with no tries in their last two matches and just two mauled efforts in their last four league fixtures, it's become something of a dead zone.

As his team's leading try-scorer Hayter is more mindful of that than most, though he retains faith that a backline which features the undoubted potential of Glyn Hughes, himself, Greg King and the proven marksmanship of Simon Hunt, can recover their potent selves and begin to amount to more than the sum of their promising parts.

"We are stll confident and we know we can play," the 24-year-old maintains. "That's the frustrating thing, we know we are better than we are showing at times.

"We can be a great team when we want to in the league but we just need to get an 80-minute performance. Leeds was a culmination of 80-minutes of all the bad things we have done over the season. We need to start getting consistent performances where we are doing good things for 80 minutes."

However, the cat might require skinning in a different way now that the conditions have turned a wintery corner. For a couple of months at least an expansive approach will probably be the way sideways and backwards rather than forwards.

That doesn't mean the threequarters must not be used a la Moseleys of previous vintage but at Wharfedale there was a tendency only to give them the ball when the pack had run out of steam.

Moseley need their heaviest carriers to plough their way over the gain-line further and more frequently if the backs are going to be given a fair crack. And as the pitches become more tacky the fact they are without their two biggest off-road vehicles, Neil Mason and Mike Powell, could not be more poorly timed.

The hope is that Mason will return in a couple of weeks, though even if he is not back to face the Titans, the British & Irish Cup double header with Gala might be conveniently timed for Moseley's most powerful bludger to come back refreshed and revitalised for the festive appointments with Nottingham and Jersey. Definitely Jersey.

In the meantime the theory doing the Billesley rounds is that attack is the best form of defence and while Moseley are hardly a soft touch when they don't have the pill, clearly they don't concede points when they do and Hayter claims maximising the latter is priority Number One through Ten.

"It's about keeping the ball, we are just giving teams easy tries, they are not breaking us down by genius play or excellent off-loads, it is us giving them the ball and giving simple mistakes away.

"We need to cut that out of our game, we know we need to do it, if we can keep going through the phases and keep patient then we know we will score tries, we have shown that in the past but we just need to show it for longer periods."

And where better place to start than this Saturday against his old team who, it should be noted, have not beaten Moseley in their last two attempts.

Throw into the mix the fact three of Moseley's four victories have come away from home, including one in the B&I at the Exiles last month, and Operation Inset could be primed for a well-timed recapitulation rather than another capitulation.