Seven-try Ealing go back to top of pile
EALING Trailfinders chief Ben Ward admitted it would have been good waking up and looking at the Championship table this morning after his side soared back to the top thanks to this seventry victory.
The director of rugby watched as his well-drilled outfit pocketed the bonus point ten minutes before the break, out-muscling their visitors who rarely looked like threatening an upset in west London.
Ward said: “We’re just focusing on this block of games at the moment but it’s really nice to wake up in the morning and see your name at the top.
“I thought we came out with a really good intensity. I thought our set piece and our ball carries were really strong and that just gave us momentum
into the game. We also had that desperation to want to defend for each other as well and when you have that recipe I’d like to think we are hard to beat.
“Cov are a good side and they have some good players who we spoke about in the week. I thought we defended those guys really well but they are still going to get opportunities and they took one early on.”
Ealing went over twice in the opening 12 minutes through back row Rayn Smid and hooker Alun Walker and, although Rob Knox dotted down in the corner soon after, the hosts continued to dominate up front with Smid claiming his second of the game after just 20 minutes.
Winger Angus Kernohan got in on the act to claim the bonus score just after the half-hour before a period of Coventry pressure prompted some impressive defending from the home side to keep them at bay.
Any hopes the visitors had of continuing that purple patch into the second period ended inside a minute of the restart as Simon Uzokwe was sent through for the fifth and the back row crossed again six minutes later, the excellent Smid again in the thick of things.
The visitors made a string of changes and the fresh legs gave Cov an obvious boost as they again looked for a way through but their cause was not helped when prop
Luc Jeannot was sin binned for an offence in the scrum.
In the end it was the new league leaders who wrapped up the scoring when replacement hooker Shaum Malton was driven over, Craig Willis slotting over his sixth conversion of the afternoon.
Coventry’s director of rugby Rowland Winter admitted their opponents were just to strong on the day.
He said: “We stuck at it with a young group but the physicality of Ealing was too much and the tries they scored in the first half weren’t where they had out-thought us or worked around us, they were just big carries where we missed the tackles.
“There were times at the end of the first half when we were knocking at the door and against other sides in this division we probably would have gone over but we panicked, lacked a bit of composure and gave them a way out.”