COVENTRY Rugby’s convincing home win against Bedford Blues came as no surprise to head coach Alex Rae.
Cov ran in seven tries at Butts Park Arena in a 45-7 success to move top of the Championship table on points difference.
And Rae felt his side nullified Bedford throughout as the home team restricted the visitors to a single try.
Rae said: “That scoreline and the way we played honestly doesn’t come as a surprise to me.
“I think Bedford are a really good attacking team and I’ve heard lots of people bang on about the brand of rugby Bedford play, but they didn’t have a chance to play any rugby.
“Our gameplan was to squeeze them and the way the lads executed it and put them under pressure was brilliant. We have a simple approach, we’re direct and it’s hard to stop us.
“I thought our line speed in defence was magnificent as you saw from the amount of times they were caught with the ball out the back.”
Rae also backed his decision to play long-standing no.8 Tiki Nayalo in the second row which handed Aaron Hinkley a starting jersey.
Rae joked: “I’ve read a few grumblings and there’s obviously a few better coaches than me around who are questioning the team selection.
“You’d hope over these last few years that people have built enough trust to realise I might know what I’m doing.
“Tiki in the second row created a chance to get a back five containing Obi Nkwocha, Tiki and then Tom Ball, Hinkley and Matt Kvesic which is a really powerful line-up.
“You might not do that every game, lineout dependent, but we thought we could do it and it worked well.
“I was really pleased for Aaron – he worked incredibly hard. He was desperate to do well and I didn’t want him to over-try, but he did really well.”
Coventry are next in action against Cambridge on Saturday, October 5 with kick-off at 3pm at Ellgia Fields.
