COVENTRY Rugby head coach Alex Rae has welcomed the re-organisation of the coming Championship season’s fixture list.
Cov start the season with a trip to London Scottish at the end of September following the release of the 2024/25 Championship fixture list.
And Rae feels Cov will benefit from a more active season following Chinnor’s promotion which restores the Championship back to 12 teams.
Rae said: “Once the cup fixtures drop in and fill November and February things will look very different to last year.
“We’re expecting a really busy season with very few weeks off once we get started.
“Last season we had lots of breaks between games but it looks like we’ll have blocks of five or six games right through this year which will help us build momentum.
“We’re better playing regularly as everyone has seen during the last two seasons when we’ve really got rolling in the second half of the campaign, so this suits us well.”
Cov returned for pre-season training at the start of July and will play Birmingham Moseley and Chinnor in friendly matches.
Rae added: “I know it sounds a bit of a dull thing to say but I tend not to look too far ahead with fixtures as that can be a dangerous game to play.
“We already can’t wait for London Scottish on the first Friday night and our full focus is on that. Our record at the RAG in recent times hasn’t been great – our first win in a long time came quite recently – and we have no right to expect to just walk away from there with an easy win.
“They have built nicely over the last year, had a lot of close games and took a few good scalps there last season so it will be a tough test for us to open with.”
Rae also looked ahead to Cov’s festive schedule which includes the visit of defending champions Ealing Trailfinders.
He said: “When you look at the Christmas and New Year fixtures you always want to see when exactly they will be played as you hope to have two big occasions.
“Throw the visit of league champions Ealing into the Christmas week mix and you know there will be a big crowd here at the Butts.
“It was one of the stand-out games last season for sure with two really good teams having a proper ding-dong and I’m sure this year will be no different.”
