By John Wilkinson, Coventry Telegraph.
January 5 2015

Coventry held out against a second-half onslaught to keep their National League One title push on the boil – but it was so close to being ‘unlucky 13’ as they were forced to dig as deep as they could go to sustain their winning run.

With first use of a stiff wind, Cov led 17-0 at half-time without ever appearing to be in total control of the situation.

And it became very uncomfortable after the break with Cov seeing little of the ball as OAs battled back to within three points before a Lewis Ludlam try, four minutes into stoppage time, clinched the club’s first win in three visits to the Woollam Playing Fields.

Ludlam’s timely score, from Cov’s only decisive move of the second half, came minutes after Nick Foster had been a fingertip away from putting OAs in front as the clock wound down, and there was still enough time left for the home side to score a third try and get back within bonus-point range.

It was that close a call, and whether it was down to some complacency, the Christmas break, the fact that they had not had a full-on training session in two weeks, or even just the difficult wet and windy conditions, Cov were given plenty of food for thought.

Possession was turned over or kicked away far too often as some of the old habits they had worked so hard to eradicate from their game earlier in the season returned to hurt them, and they didn’t adapt to the weather as well as the home side.

But it was to Cov’s credit that they still had the strength of character to win a game which could so easily have been lost, and despite slipping a further point behind leaders Ealing, the damage could have been a lot worse.

Danny Watt missed a 36-metre penalty into the wind before Cov went ahead after four minutes through a Matt Jones penalty.

Jones miscued a second kick on 12 minutes, and OAs enjoyed plenty of possession for the next 15 minutes until a piece of individual brilliance from scrum-half Wayne Evans, who chipped over the top of a ruck on the home 22 and followed up to dive on the ball between the posts, extended the lead.

Jones converted the try and he added the extras when Rob Knox cut through behind a line-out to touch down by the posts and give Cov a reasonable advantage to defend against the elements.

They were, however, largely architects of their own undoing when they were penalised attempting to play the ball out of their own 22 and the home forwards drove over from the resulting line-out for Billy Johnson to give OAs an early try, Will Magie converting.

Click here for more on this article.

Old Albanian 19 Coventry RFC 24.

Discussion started by Unofficial Coventry Rugby (IP Logged), 05/01/2015 18:22

Unofficial Coventry Rugby
05/01/2015 18:22

What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.

Reply Quote Report

Goto: Forum List•Message List•Search• Log In

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

We record all IP addresses on the Sportnetwork message boards which may be required by the authorities in case of defamatory or abusive comment. We seek to monitor the Message Boards at regular intervals. We do not associate Sportnetwork with any of the comments and do not take responsibility for any statements or opinions expressed on the Message Boards. If you have any cause for concern over any material posted here please let us know as soon as possible by e-mailing abuse@sportnetwork.net