Coventry Rugby 64 Cambridge 12 - 10 try Cov enjoy a night under the lights

Da Da

Woah oh oh oh

Well, my friends, the time has come

To raise the roof and have some fun

Throw away the work to be done

Let the music play on (Play on, play on, play on)

Everybody sing, everybody dance

All night long (All night), All night (All night)

All night long (All night), All night (All night)

All Night Long - Lionel Richie

Five wins on the bounce now.

Confidence at Coventry Rugby is understandably high at the moment and on current form the team is arguably playing the best rugby in the Championship.

It's a good time to be a Coventry supporter.

Any team visiting the BPA knows it's a particularly difficult place to play, but with Cov playing some of the best rugby we've seen all season and under the lights, in front of nearly 3000 supporters soaking in the atmosphere of a Friday night special, well it's a really big ask of any visiting side to come away with the points.

So, it was no real surprise that a depleted Cambridge, struggling at the wrong end of the table, found it tough going despite their best efforts.

Coventry were simply too strong, too quick and way too clinical for a gutsy Cambridge side that in all fairness deserved a little more from the game. The visitors were always willing to take the game to Cov, perhaps overly so at times, but they made Cov work really hard in the opening 15 minutes and were it not for a couple of spilled chances and some really strong defensive work (including one brilliant try-saving tackle by Ryan Hutler within the first 5 minutes to prevent Cambridge's left wing from scoring), they could have taken an early lead.

Cov 'butchered' several try scoring chances of their own and Cambridge could well have got a bonus point out of the game and still been on the wrong end of a 60-point loss. Certainly, there would have been few complaints from the Cov crowd had Cambridge taken a point home with them such was the visitors willingness to play an open, attacking brand of rugby.

It made for a great watch and I'm sure those Cambridge supporters who made the journey up, whilst disappointed at the size of the defeat, will have been proud of the overall performance of their team.

It wasn't that Cambridge were poor, it was just that on the night Coventry were very, very good.

In both games this season, Cambridge have impressed and despite the result, there were enough positives for the coaches to take away from the encounter to give them the belief that the team can be competitive next season despite currently sitting at the foot of the table.

Coventry were in complete control for pretty much the whole game, although in fairness the Cov scrum struggled the more game went on. The old adage that 'forwards win matches but the backs decide by how many' was subject to some scrutiny as the Cov backs took complete control of a game in which every time they got the ball, they looked capable of scoring from anywhere on the pitch.

Light rain for much of the game made handling difficult at times

The three-quarters scored 8 of the 10 tries, several from broken play and had it not been for the wet conditions that made handling difficult at times and a couple of wayward passes, they could, and should, have scored even more.

Whilst Toby Venner will rightly have earned some really favourable reviews following his three tries in his first full start for the club, for me it was Pat Pellegrini who ran the show.

Whether it was his sparking breaks that had the Cambridge defence twisting and turning in retreat or his precision kicking out of hand, he proved a constant irritant to the visitors and although he failed to cross the line himself, several of the Cov tries resulted for his individual creativity.

So charismatic is he on the pitch these days, when he receives the ball there is an air of expectation amongst the crowd the like of which we haven't seen for many a year. Cov fans have always had their favourites, but Pelligrini is clearly something special and for as long as the club is able to keep him at the BPA, he will have the crowd on its feet whenever he has ball in hand.

Most of us are more than willing to gloss over the fact that his place kicking isn't perhaps quite of the same quality as the rest of his game, such is his ability to make things happen.

That said, he only missed on conversion on Friday and is currently the leading points scorer in the Championship by a distance.

He's one of the few players at this level who is capable of putting bums on seats. I'm sure the club wouldn't stand in his way should a top club come a-calling but equally I hope they'll do all they can to keep him here next season.

The impact Pellegrini has on games makes giving Evan Mitchell a start at 10 all the more difficult. Mitchell, you'll recall, played in most of the games in Cov's unbeaten run-in to the end of last season following Pat's hand injury.

And in doing so he looked a player of great potential.

Mitchell was at full back yesterday and although very solid there, he lacked the attacking threat of Tobi Wilson (as was shown when Wilson came on in the second half and Mitchell took over at 10 when Pellegrini was given a rest). I don't envy coaches when trying to motivate players who deserve more game time but are shadowing players of Pelligrini's ability. It can't be easy.

Pellegrini and Toby Venner quickly formed a very exciting partnership at half back, with Venner's third try coming off another mesmerising run form Pellegrini. If Will Chudley is to hang up his boots any time soon, then the former Jersey, Bristol and Gloucester 9 will have done his chances of earning himself a contract no harm at all - although quite where that leaves the unfortunate Will Lane, I'm not too sure.

Venner is quick, very quick indeed and his ability to snipe around the fringes or place himself on the shoulder off the line breaker makes him a real attacking threat.

With so many attacking options behind the scrum these days, Gordon Ross must be delighted with the progress the backs have made since his arrival at Cov as attack coach. One player has already progressed into the Premiership and who's to say there won't be other clubs looking closely at the likes of Wilson, Hutler, Wand, Pellegrini, Hitchcock and Martin - they're all making a case for a step up, surely?

With the degree of success Cov is currently enjoying, the interest of the bigger clubs is bound to be piqued. It's just one measure of the impact the coaches are currently having, I suppose. You can't have the one without the other these days. Everyone's looking for a bargain and the Championship appears to be providing a good few at the moment, much to the embarrassment of Bill Sweeney I imagine (for 'imagine', read 'hope').

Will Wand had another strong game on Friday (when doesn't he?), but it was his inside centre partner, Tom Hitchcock who, of the two, stood out for me. He seems to be getting better with each game, not unsurprisingly really as he only arrived here mid-season. And on Friday he showed the kind of raw pace and power that made Will Rigg such a dangerous player before him.

His second try, an angled run that saw him burst through the Cambridge defences with barely a hand laid on him, was a classic and he's another player who, along with Venner, is adding much to the depth of this current squad. I'd love to see him here next season - if the rumours are true and Adam Nicol is on his way to Ealing, then it seems only right we have Tom H in return! Presuming he'd want to come, of course.

According to the match report in today's The Rugby Paper, whilst Coventry conceded 9 penalties in total, Cambridge conceded just 4. Yes, 4! That's an incredibly low figure - I'm not even sure when I've watched a side give away fewer. What is even more surprising is that a team whose discipline is that good still manages to ship 60 plus points!

Listening to Cambridge's Richie Williams on the club's pre-match podcast (an excellent one it is too - other Championship clubs could learn a thing or two from Cambridge, a club that has always been very media savvy), it was clear that Cambridge were always going to be up against it. They travelled to the BPA with a squad weakened by a number of injuries to key players and, because it was a Friday several of their squad were having to work 'til midday before heading off to Cov. It's all far removed from Coventry's full-time set up.

It's all too easy to forget that there are teams who only come together two evenings a week to practice and in Cambridge's case, with no floodlights at their ground, they can only stay out as long as the light holds.

Williams made it clear Cambridge intended to go on the offensive as much as possible and saw this and their remaining games as a chance to try out a few things in advance of next season when they hope, with a year of Championship rugby under their belts, to be in a better position to challenge for a mid-table position.

And he was true to his word - from the off Cambridge showed they were willing to be inventive and creative in their play. We were penalised very early on and after looking like they were going to go for touch, they took a quick tap, surprising Cov and thereby setting the mood for the entire game.

Early on they looked threatening and made good metres on a couple of occasions but were arguably guilty of being overly adventurous - indeed, their two tries in the second half stemmed from rolling mauls close in. Had they mixed it up a little more, maybe they would have had a bit more success.

For the second week running, Alex Rae was able to make wholesale changes on or around the 50-minute mark, with all the replacements on the pitch with 15 minutes still to go. Hopefully, with no obvious injuries, they'll be a full squad to choose from (other than Jack Bartlett, of course) for the trip to Nottingham next Sunday. Rae was afforded the luxury of playing a younger, slightly less experienced team, for the Cambridge game but I imagine with second place now very much Cov's to lose after Ealing's win against Pirates, he'll want to go with a slightly more experienced starting line-up over at The Bay.

I thought Chester Owen had another strong showing and is definitely going to have a big role to play - and a shout out for David Opoku, too. He looks such an exciting prospect - he just needs to get a couple of tries under his belt to give him a bit of confidence at this level and there'll be no stopping him.

Hopefully another Cov win, and an emphatic one at that, will see the Coventry juggernaut gather speed as it journeys to Nottingham for next weekend's game. Even though the BPA was a good place to be if you were a Cov fan, I'm loathe to take too much pleasure from watching Cambridge taken apart, as they were at times on Friday, given the differences in resources between the two clubs. Irrespective of the Rowland Winter connection, they've long been one of my favourite clubs; a very welcoming place to visit on away days and a club that plays rugby in the spirit it should be played.

And they're always very generous post-match, even after a defeat such as this. In Cambridge's match report on the club website, Head Coach Richie Williams was quick to acknowledge Coventry's dominance:

'I thought from minute one to minute eighty they were probably the best team we've come up against across the board tonight...'

Inevitably, there's a big gulf between those sides that are fully professional and those that are part-timers in this league; that was evident on Friday night. But Cambridge's approach was one that deserves credit and I'm sure whilst it will hurt, lessons will be learned from the experience.

For Cov though, well it's a question of winning their last four games to ensure a second-place finish:

Taken from BBC website

Cornish are best placed to challenge us, with a possible 76 points finish. Four bonus point wins would make it impossible for any team to catch us, but with Cov yet to play Blues at home and Pirates away, it's far from certain who will finish 4th, let alone 2nd.

Cov scored their 102nd try of the season on Friday evening and with 2nd place possibly down to points' difference, we have an advantage there. It's going to be tight for sure, but at least with so much to play for, especially given second would be our best ever finish in the Championship, there's still so much to look forward to at a time when so many clubs find themselves playing what are, in effect, just dead rubbers.

Nottingham on Sunday it is then.

Another corker.

Up the Cov!

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I'm not a great fan of Friday night games, but I accept it gives those unable to make Saturday afternoons a chance to watch Cov, so every now and again they make sense. With Friday's gate 400+ below the average for the season at almost 3000 (including a number of free entries for those working in the emergency services), I imagine the club will see it as a success despite what must have been a drop in revenues.

Personally, I'm a traditionalist and a 3.00 pm kick off on a Saturday afternoon is when games should be played, despite all arguments to the contrary. And I appreciate there are many.

That said, if Coventry were to play as they did against Cambridge every time there's an evening game, well I could be persuaded to change my opinion.

I could have watched Cov all night...

...all night long...

.