RUGBY UNION: ALTHOUGH he admits it was by no means pretty, Coventry’s director of rugby Rowland Winter was just relieved to see his side stumble to a fourth consecutive victory, this time over Blaydon in National League One.
As has been the case in several previous matches, Coventry dominated the early period and despite losing their way late on which allowed Blaydon to take the lead with one minute remaining, the blue & whites eventually got over the line 19-17.
“We probably didn’t get out of second gear and we sort of stalled our way through,” said Winter.
“Blaydon put pressure on us, they kept going as we knew they would, but a win is a win, that’s four on the bounce now, and I’ll take a scrappy win at this point.
“It got really scrappy and we lacked a little bit of composure in the 10 to 15 minutes before half-time when we stopped tackling low, dropped our line speed and were drifting off them.
“We came out in the second half and put that right, but gradually the game became more of a scrappy affair, there was not much in it really, and everything was messy.”
After wasting several notable chances in the openig minutes, Coventry eventually took the lead with seven minutes on the clock when a loose clearance fell to Tom Jubb who charged over for his second try of the season and James Pritchard was successful with the conversion.
On 26 minutes the home side extended their lead thanks to an excellent team try. Dyer and Rhodi Adamson combined before Tom Wheatcroft fired a long pass up field and Rob Knox was able to score in the left corner, which Pritchard converted again for 14-0.
Coventry however did not kick on and instead Blaydon got themselves back in the match on 32 minutes after Chris Wearmouth went over and Brett Connon added the extras before scoring a penalty to cut the deficit to four points at half-time.
The elements for in Coventry’s favour after the break but Blaydon pegged them back for much of the second half which was limited in terms of scoring opportunitites.
The home crowd were then stunned when Blaydon took the lead in the 79th minutes as replacement Kriss Bratton ran through the Coventry defence before being held, but hooker Cameron Bell surged over and Connon scored the extras to make it 17-14.
But Coventry strung into a response and after several raids were halted, Rundle was able to power over to the relief of the home support.
Winer added: “We’ve got a lot to work on this week. Ampthill will be a tougher test than Blaydon were, and that’s no disrespect to Blaydon – they came here and fought for everything.
“We’ve got plenty to work with, there’s lots of competition for places and we’ve got another win before Ampthill.”
