Deacon urges Cov to keep raising standards
Rugby Reporter FORWARDS coach Louis Deacon believes the Coventry Rugby squad is ‘slowly building’ to where he wants them to be following a rampant display against Yorkshire Carnegie.
Coventry ran in 10 tries, eight of which were converted to secure an impressive 66-26 victory in Yorkshire last Sunday to rise to third place in the early IPA Greene King Championship table.
Despite that impressive showing, former Leicester Tigers and England lock Deacon feels Coventry have yet to reach peak performance levels.
“We’re getting there. We’re slowly building to where, in particular I want our forward pack to be,” said the 39-year-old. “We had a good performance in the set-piece last week.
“The challenge now is to deliver that sort of performance against teams near the top of the table and be more consistent, week in, week out.”
The dominance of the scrum has been a strong highlight of Coventry’s play this season, in particular in their last two fixtures against Carnegie and the Bedford Blues. It is something that Deacon himself has challenged his pack of forwards to get on top of.
“It is probably one of our stand-out areas so far this season,” he explained. “It’s a mindset and we’ve certainly been delivering in that area.
“I’ve challenged the players and said ‘can we do that against top four opposition?’ We’ve certainly got the personnel to achieve in that area of the pitch.
“What I was really happy to see at the weekend was that there was no drop off in what we consider to be our standards throughout the game, whether that be from the players who start, or the players who came off the bench.”
Next up to test that set-piece resolve will be established Championship outfit, Ealing Trailfinders. Despite an early setback away to Cornish Pirates on in round one, they have begun to turn their fortunes around with successive victories against the Jersey Reds and away to Bedford last time out.
Saturday’s challenge in London is one Deacon is relishing, especially after Ealing won 22-17 in the Championship Cup earlier this month.
“We’ve done our analysis and we know exactly what they will bring,” said Deacon. “Looking back to our fixture against them just four weeks ago in the Championship Cup, we started slowly, and we cannot afford to let that happen again.
“We need a good a start, to be physical and to not let them get on the front foot, because if they do, they’re a very dangerous side and they’ll put points away.”