By sortit DIRECTOR of rugby Rowland Winter insists that feet remain firmly on the ground after Coventry’s high-scoring 56-40 win over Welsh visitors Newport.
Cov showed their attacking capabilities to run in eight tries but, after leading 56-19 towards the end of the third quarter, allowed Newport back into the game too easily over the final 20 minutes.
“We didn’t play for 80 minutes at all,” said Winter. “We had large facets of the game that were good and parts of our game that worked well, but that wasn’t an 80-minute performance.
“In terms of our attack, we got our system right and once we got the right people in the right spots we tore them apart, almost scoring at will.
“I’m over the moon with that. But in defence we slipped off, at times we were a bit slack in the first half, and then after coming out for the second half and getting our systems right, individually we made some errors.
“Our scrum has been consistently good, our line-out showed a massive turn around compared to last week, and we had an attacking platform off that. With the wind today, it put their skills under pressure, but like the backs, the forwards have got a lot of work to do. They have got to be a lot sharper for the way we want to play.
“It wasn’t a complete performance by any stretch of the imagination, we scored a lot of points, but we also conceded a lot which is something we’ve got to have a look at.
“It’s what pre-season is about, it’s finding out about players, seeing the good and bad parts of their performance.
“We’re nowhere near ready, we’ve got a lot of work to do and we’ve only got 14 days to put it right.”
Read John Buter’s review in the Match Reports section.
