Coventry Rugby 49 Caldy 31 - tactical changes make the difference as Cov fitness tells
- 1874tsmith
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk
Yesterday, we witnessed both the highest and lowest points of Coventry Rugby on the pitch this season, and were I to quantify it in percentages, it would lean more towards mediocrity than excellence.
This wasn't anywhere near as comprehensive a win as the score would have us believe.
Cov, though, were the fitter of the two sides and after some astute changes by Alex Rae and the coaches at half time and later in the third quarter, the home side finished the stronger, although two tries in the final ten minutes in the end probably flattered Cov somewhat.
Nonetheless, it's important to acknowledge from the beginning that Coventry still faces huge challenges due to injuries and enforced absences, creating some real head scratching decisions for Head Coach, Alex Rae. These persist despite the recent 5-week break, which was hoped to see the return of one or two long-term absentees.
Missing yesterday were Okeke, Opoku Fordjour, James Tyas, Liam Richman, Matt Johnson, Matt Kvesic, Obinna Nkwacha, Oli Morris, Rhys Anstey, Steff Davies and Mackenzie Graham - that's a third of Coventry's first team squad according to the website's team photos, although there have been a couple of players on loan too, of course. That's a third of the entire squad, near enough.
If Cov's injury woes weren't already enough, it would appear that Mackenzie Graham, on loan from Bath, has damaged an ACL after making such a promising first appearance last week at Chinnor.
Small wonder then that since Christmas Coventry just hasn't been able to reproduce the kinds of performances that typified much of Coventry's play 6-12 months ago.
The rugby gods really aren't favouring the BPA right now.
With a relatively small squad of just 32/33, it must be a struggle to even come up with the names of 23 fit players each week at the moment and you have to feel for Rae given the hand he's been dealt right now.
It's all too easy to take a game like yesterday's in isolation and be overly critical, yet despite all these unexpected challenges the team faces almost on a daily basis, the club remains second in the league, albeit with a much harder run in to the end of the season than the clubs snapping at their heels.
Given the injury crisis that has befallen the club in recent weeks, if not months, a second placed finish this season (the highest achieved by any Cov side in the professional era other than the relegation from Division 1 in its inaugural year), would be an incredible achievement. The one caveat for me, though, is that I'm far from convinced this is the strongest Championship we've seen since our promotion in 2018 - Ealing apart.
One of the issues of late has been Coventry's defence which all of a sudden has become sieve-like in comparison to the period before Christmas. Cov's last three games have been against the bottom three clubs in the league - Cambridge, Chinnor and Caldy - and in those three games we have conceded 101 of the 381 for the season so far (15 games in total), with the average increasing from 23.3 points in the first 12 to 33.6 in the last three We play Ampthill next week who lie in nineth place and from thereon in the games get significantly more challenging.
Something needs to change.
Fortunately, Alex Rae has set up his side to be far more attacking of late and so any concerns about our defensive frailties are at least offset somewhat by out increased try count, but against the likes of Hartpury, Doncaster and Ealing that won't be enough.
In his post-comments, Rae accepted that Cov's first half-performance just wasn't good enough:
At the start of the game we scored a good try but then we stunk the place out and made too many errors...I won't repeat what I said at half-time, but to be honest we huffed and puffed our way through the game and although we won, I'm not very pleased' (Paul Smith - The Rugby Paper)
I presume 'stunk the place out' is a rugby idiom for making too many basic, often unforced, errors. Either that or the pre-match curry piloted this weekend is probably something the club chef won't be asked to repeat in the future.
Robson's opening try in the first minute of the game was an absolute stonker, the ball travelling end to end in the blink of an eye and it looked for all the world that Rae's mid-week prediction that Cov would play a quick, attacking game which would be too much for the part-timers from Caldy was about to be realised.
However, particularly in the first half Cov tried to overcomplicate things and it all became too rushed and frenetic. When play broke down, as it inevitably seemed to do, Caldy had the pace and experience in the backs to run the ball, transitioning from defence into attack at speed. They also slowed the game down when they could, legitimately I should add, but they had the nous to frustrate Cov and prevent them from dictating the pace as much as they would have liked.
With Coventry trying to get onto the front foot wherever possible, when Caldy regained possession from broken play, gaps appeared all too often. It needed some cool heads just to calm things down a little, but that didn't really happen in those opening 40 minutes. Oddly, Maunder captaining the side for the first time, had his least effective game in a Cov shirt and was replaced by Barton on the 47-minute mark.
And Caldy had a set of forwards who were big, seriously big, and they looked dangerous whenever they closed in on the Coventry line. Twice Caldy levelled the scores in the first half before taking the lead on 30 minutes. They were good value for it too, and few would have complained had Caldy gone into the break with a further try in the final play of the half, only failing to do so after an apparent fumble in the dead ball area.
The referee didn't seem to help the situation either with some fairly erratic decisions at times but that wasn't the reason Cov were trailing at the break, no that was down to their own lack of discipline at times. And the crowd's own frustrations somehow seemed to affect the players, too. There were times yesterday when it felt like the 16th man wasn't necessarily having the positive impact that we've been used to down at the BPA.
The situation wasn't helped when tempers got a little heated as Coventry failed to capitalise on a spell of pressure on the Caldy 5m line and after some pushing and shoving Aaron Hinkley was given a yellow card. Someone had clearly upset him and he was visibly unhappy on his way to the stand. It seemed to take a few quiet words from James Scaysbrook to calm him down - the coach appearing to be his mentor at times, often working with him in the pre-warm up too. Hinkley was influential in the second half and whilst Tiki Nayalo was rightly everyone's MofM, he wasn't far behind for me.
After the break, and following Alex Rae's words of encouragement (!), Cov came out with three new faces - Hutler, Trinder and Ma'asi for Tiueti, Warren and Biggs - Rae presumably deciding that the midfield and front row were areas that were most in need of some fresh faces.
They quite simply had to work it harder, make it better, do it faster...and to the players credit, that is what they did, although I imagine with Alex Rare's words of wisdom still ringing in their ears as they ran out for the second half, that was made all the easier.
The second half was better, but it was still nip and tuck for a good 25 minutes before Cov were at last able to pull away from a Caldy side that showed tremendous spirit. It was very hot out there and that began to take its toll, especially on the Caldy forwards. Interestingly, one of the Caldy props who'd started the game but had been replaced in the second half, decided to watch the game from the aisle next to where we were sitting and said that the rubber pellets that covered the surface of the artificial pitch were uncomfortably hot....
It was job done and the players and coaches must have been pleased with the final outcome, although less so with the manner of the performance itself.
With so many players unavailable, at least Theo Mannion got another 20 minutes out on the pitch, scoring a try and kicking two conversions in the process. He's another talented youngster and a product of the Academy, rather like Evan Mitchell before him, and looks as if he could develop into a very tidy player given the opportunity.
Perhaps the most worrying thing to come out of yesterday's game was another two potential injuries, both amongst the backs. Charlie Robson hobbled off after a very encouraging display in attack and James Martin appeared to have hurt an ankle late on, although he stayed on until the finish. Fingers crossed that neither injury is anything that will keep them out of contention next week.
The build up before the game felt a bit subdued for once and the atmosphere was definitely down a notch or two before kick-off. It was Ladies Day, although you wouldn't really have known it from just perusing the crowd - I'd seen five or six ladies in fancy dress (Abba themed) come in through the turnstiles and the marquee seemed have more of a gender mix than usual (no bad thing that, either), although the numbers enjoying the pre-game hospitality in total looked well down.
Just under 2,500 people attended the game, which must be disappointing given Cov's current league position. With little at stake and facing opponents who may not be the biggest attractions in the Championship, a smaller than average crowd was expected but perhaps not quite this low. Cov did everything possible to attract more supporters, offering incentives for Ladies Day and discounted prices for Cov City season ticket holders. No criticism there at all.
The weather and The Grand National might have contributed to the lower turnout -hopefully attendance will exceed 3,000 next week against Ampthill, although I'm not going to hold my breath.
On entering the ground, it became immediately apparent that significant changes to the food options around the ground had been made since last week. Gone were the Marco Pierre White/Food Heroes trucks, to be replaced by a Burger and Fries trailer and an ice-cream and waffle outlet (also selling a mean cup of coffee).
Quite what the rationale behind this is, given that Food Heroes are major sponsors of the club, isn't clear - I'm guessing they'll let everyone know in due course as it has been quick to promote new food options around the ground over the last couple of seasons.
There was plenty of pre-kick-off talk among those I spoke to about the RFU announcement regarding Worcester's return to the Championship next season. It's hardly come as a surprise and discussions are now moving from the rights or wrongs of such a decision to the likelihood of some Coventry players making their way down the M5 to Sixways.
Ruck.co.uk are making it pretty clear that they believe that Matt Kvesic is on his way and whilst that is obviously very disappointing, it comes as no surprise. When Worcester's return was first mooted, it was rumoured Kvesic would be one of the phoenix club's first signings and I've not had a problem with that - he's given his all in a Cov shirt, but his heart clearly lies with the Warriors.
Who else is on their shopping list though? The proximity to Worcester makes Cov an obvious target, especially given its success in recent seasons. Cov must have anticipated Worcester's return and taken steps to sort out contracts etc earlier rather than later, but the bottom line for me is if a player would rather be somewhere else, then maybe Cov isn't the best place for them anyway.
Exciting times are ahead—hopefully, Cov has made some useful signings of their own by now. Semi-professional clubs like Cambridge, Caldy, and Chinnor have demonstrated how successful they can be on a limited budget without star players. If Cov needs to rebuild again and ranks below teams like Ealing, Worcester, and Doncaster in terms of priority for available players, then that's ok. We've witnessed Cov's successful recruitment in the past with players like Pellegrini, Wand, Rigg, Wilson, and others...and it will do so again.
It's the uncertainty that is the most frustrating aspect to all this, but at least now we know the make-up of the Championship next season (with more Friday nights in London - bugger) and everything (?) is out in the open.
Soon, Cov will reveal season ticket prices and gradually release squad updates for the next season and the angst resulting from the past season and a half of uncertainty and misrepresentation will soon be overshadowed by the excitement of a larger, more prestigious competition next season.
At least that's what the RFU is banking on.
Meanwhile there's the not so small matter of Ampthill at home next weekend. And in between for the players, those who are fit anyway, it's a case of:
Interesting comment from Rae about how injuries also affect the mid-week training…not considered that before but can imagine it must cause problems.
Thanks, Trevor!
great review write up, just got today's COV Tel Tuesday write up match review, seeing as we near Easter, article makes good reading Mr AR not a happy bunny also he has not many good words for Sir in Ravers game,more worrying for me is the unforced errors huge simple mistakes think we need better fluency when Mob come to BPA Sat 12th 3pm huge banana skin here, anyhow hope you are keeping well up in COV best regards Trev &Sue in Ryde, match thoughts below still lots of sick note players not in squad,,,,,
Rae: Injury-hit Cov stunk in first half despite result
Coventry Telegraph
8 Apr 2025
COMPARED to several of his predecessors Coventry head coach Alex Rae…