ALEX Rae felt Coventry Rugby ‘stunk the place out’ in the first half of his side’s bonus point victory against Caldy.
Coventry trailed by seven points at the break before eventually claiming a 49-31 victory in a high-scoring affair at Butts Park Arena.
And Rae could not hide his frustration at Coventry’s first-half display but praised the impact of his experienced players from the bench.
Rae said: “At the start of the game we scored a really good try but then I thought we stunk the place out for the rest of a first half in which we made loads too many errors.
“We huffed and puffed our way through the game to be honest so all-in-all even though we won I’m not very pleased.
“I can’t repeat what I said at half-time and to be honest I can’t really remember the details.
“Me being like that doesn’t happen too often and I hope it doesn’t happen again this season.
“We knew Caldy would blow a gasket at some point due to the tempo we played at and when that happened we knew the game would open up.
“The experienced boys who came on in the second-half – Jordon Poole, Toby Trinder and Josh Barton in particular – settled things down nicely for us.”
Coventry ran in seven tries as Senitiki Nayalo and Charlie Robson both crossed twice before Chester Owen, Josh Barton and Theo Mannion all dotted down.
However, Rae remains without a number of players including forwards Matt Kvesic (bicep), Obi Nkwocha (knee), Matt Johnson (shoulder) and Rhys Anstey (shoulder).
And backs Oli Morris, Steff Davies, Liam Richman and on-loan forward Mackenzie Graham all missed the win at Caldy.
However, Rae accepts a number of teams in the Championship are also struggling with a mounting injury list.
Rae added: “When you look at the team we put out, our forwards had an average age of around 23 and that was dragged up by Tiki Nayalo who’s a bit older.
“We’re a bit patched-up at the moment due to injuries and we had a few boys playing out of position, but that’s the way it is sometimes and we just roll our sleeves up and work hard.
“At the moment it feels like every time one person gets back to fitness we lose another two – if it carries on like this I might have to register myself to play.
“Although the fans notice it on a Saturday what they don’t see is just how hard it hits us in the week when we don’t have the bodies to train how we want because there’s a few nursing bumps.
“It’s tough but we’re not alone – there’s maybe six or seven cubs in the Championship who are doing exactly the same thing at this stage of the season.”
Coventry are next in action against Ampthill on Saturday, April 12 with kick-off at 3pm at Butts Park Arena.
