By Nick M
October 30 2021

LAST night, I was sitting in an old-fashioned hotel room in Penzance, at the end of an eight-hour rail journey, drying out from the second downpour of the day, and wondering why the season so far has felt so flat. I’ve been a Coventry rugby supporter for long enough to know that you get seasons where the team doesn’t gel immediately, and this year with the restrictions placed on the club, both financially and organisationally due to the stage of the Covid-19 pandemic I can understand why some of these are happening – so for this article I am proposing to ignore the results on the pitch, and look at some other aspects of the current situation.

So, putting aside the results, what else is it that is making this season so lacklustre, so downbeat? And, what can the club reasonably do to resolve some of the issues?

Very obviously the club has been hit very hard financially by the pandemic. It has affected the team in obvious ways, reducing the number of core players, and increasing the dependence on loan and dual-registered players from the Premiership, and their academies. I would say though that the impact, although less obvious has been equally great on the behind-the-scenes areas where staff have been lost, and largely not replaced, and where the focus of their work has drawn back to inward-facing operational tasks and away from the supporters. Recent weeks have seen the departure of two more experienced and capable people, who both did so much to keep things working during the behind-closed-doors part of last year’s partial season. That experience does not appear to have been replaced.

I doubt that this is something that will be fixed quickly. We may have had an ‘attendance’ of over 2,300 for the Ealing Trailfinders game, but this (as for everyone at the Championship level) includes all sold season tickets, even if their holders did not attend. Income though, to the club, must be seriously down, with the empty bars, and the limited catering.

So, what is it that the club (in this case) should be doing to raise enthusiasm, which is within their power, and could be done at minimum expense?

My gut feeling is that the biggest impact would come from better communications from the playing side of the club. I quite get why week by week information about the playing squad is held back, until the midday Friday team announcements required by the RFU, but this is a season where because of the economic imperative of using more DRs and loan players, and social distancing from the players, that we, as supporters, are more separated from informal routes of communications, and as a result need more formal information flow to create and maintain our connections with our team.

So, if not full, immediate status of active players, how about information on players who would not at once be available for selection for the team?

We have several players with medium to long-term injury outages. I cannot see how it could cause harm for there to be regular, summary updates on the state of these players. They need not be detailed, but at least a feel for progress. “So-and-so is recovering well, and we expect to have then in full training earlier than expected in December”, “Someone else has had an operation on their knee, which is likely to take a couple of months recovery time”.

Alongside that, updates on the numerous visiting players would do good, even if our association with them is less close than with their Coventry-registered teammates. There have been a lot of them, and I can only assume that a number are back at their home clubs – either temporarily or permanently. Again, if they are no longer available to Coventry, can the club not tell us?

So, if by some chance I end up chatting with club staff at the Mennaye today, those are the sort of questions I shall be asking, or actions I would be discussing. Nothing ambitious and expensive, nothing that would require extra people to conduct.

You may have different ideas as to what the club should do. Please do share them in reply to this posting. I’m particularly asking for ideas that would be carried out in the short term at minimal effort, which could do something to bring back the atmosphere at this difficult time.

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AS an addition to Nick's article above (thanks Nick), can we just add our condolences to Michael Carter on the loss of his wife Pat. Mick loves his trips to the Duchy, so this news is tinged with even more poignancy than usual.

Take care Mick.

Steve, Rhys, Nick