Perfectionist Rae wants even more after away victory
18 27
FIVE points, four tries and third in the table – but all this failed to add up to a perfect away day for Coventry’s director of rugby Alex Rae.
The Blue-and-whites looked to be cruising to a convincing victory against a Caldy side struggling to come to terms with life in the Championship following last year’s promotion only to let them off the hook in the latter stages.
Rae said: “Once we got control of the game with our style of rugby, the tempo and the driving game, we looked really good for 60 minutes and deserved to be in front. Unfortunately we didn’t see the game out and in the last 20 minutes we made really hard work of it.
“Credit to Caldy, they never gave up, never went away and got on top of us in the scrum which gave them momentum and belief and we had to fight and show some character at the end which is always pleasing to see but we should never have been in that situation.”
Following an early exchange of penalties, Cov ran in four tries without reply to stamp their mark on the game.
Hooker Suva Ma’asi bagged the first following a driving maul and while his side were down to 14
men following a yellow card for Shea Cornish.
The flying winger redeemed himself though with a brace of tries, the first following a sublime offload from former Caldy centre Lucas Titherington, before Will Rigg barged his way to the line to wrap up the bonus point early in the second period. Pat Pellegrini kicked two conversions to add to his earlier penalty.
The Wirral outfit rallied late on with tries from skipper JJ Dickinson and a quick-fire double from full-back Elliot Gourlay while the visitors were hampered by having both George Smith and Danny Southworth in the sin bin.
Cov now focus on a month of Championship Cup games and Rae is happy with the start to the league campaign, adding: “To be five from seven in this first league block and be third in the table is really pleasing with this young group.”
CALDY: Gourlay, Royle (Beer 40), Bibby, Barlow, Jones, Hinchcliffe (Hayes 56), Pilgrim (Thomas 48); Aigbokhae (Rushton 56), Hearn (Caine 58), Darlington (Higginson 48), S Dickinson, Sanders, Gerrard (Parry 66), Ridgway (Crowe 48), J Dickinson.
COVENTRY: Brown (James 57), Talbotdavies, Rigg, Titherington (Mitchell 65), Cornish (Trinder 71), Pellegrini, Chudley (Lane 63); Trinder (Southworth 54), Ma’asi, Seward (Andrews 54), Tyas (Smith 67), Peters, Dodd (Ball 57), Bainbridge, Betteridge. Not used: Stone.
We had to fight and show some character at the end which is always pleasing to see but we should never have been in that situation. Head coach Alex Rae