By John Wilkinson DIRECTOR of rugby Rowland Winter was understandably happy with Coventry’s performance in the 40-7 win at Cambridge which leaves them seven points clear at the top of National Division One – but admitted to a slight feeling of disappointment.
Cov, who had wrapped up their four-try bonus point in the first 24 minutes, were within touching distance of going a third game without conceding a single point when Cambridge finally breached the defensive line to score a late consolation try.
“To go 78 minutes and then concede a try is almost close to disappointing because everyone had worked so hard,” said Winter. “But the main thing is we’ve come here, we’ve got the five points and we’ve stuck 40 points past their supposedly good defence. We’ve done well there.
“The set piece was strong, we got a good platform out of that and we really took it to them. I thought we won the collisions, which is something we need to do away from home, and they just couldn’t handle the pressure we mounted on them with the power game we’ve got – to be honest, we probably should have had a few more points on the scoreboard.
“It’s nine wins on the trot and we’re at the top of the table, we’re happy with what we’re doing, and now we look forward to Caldy at home. We’ll patch up the squad and move on again.”
The cost of the win was injuries to second row George Oram and scrum-half Dave Brazier – the latter dislocating his wrist and set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines.
With Pete White still a few weeks away from a return it gives Cov something to think about, but Winter was delighted at the way Tom Emery stepped in for the last half hour.
“It’s disappointing to lose another scrum-half, it’s the last position we’d want to lose, but it’s good we’ve got a budding replacement in Tom. He’s a scrum-half by trade and once he settled in he did really well.
“I was really pleased with him and I’d be more than happy to put Tom in there to start next week, he’s a very talented scrum-half.”
Cov played the final quarter with 14 men after centre Sam Tuitupou was sent off for punching. “I’ll have to have a look at it on the video,” said Winter. “I was looking the other way at the time and then just saw a big melee, so I knew something had happened. We’ll have to see.”
The win also set a new club league record of 17 straight league wins.
“It’s always nice,” said Winter, “but I’m not all that bothered about club records, we’ll go forward and try to get to 18 this week and keep moving on which is the important thing.”
