Not an evening that will be remembered with any great fondness if you happened to be a follower of the Blue and Whites.

A performance that was devoid of any real passion or direction saw Coventry bitterly disappoint their home fans and at the same time record a fourth home defeat of the season.

Particularly galling was that London Welsh themselves were no world beaters, scoring just one try despite considerable territorial dominance with even that touchdown having a slightly questionable element about its validity. The Dragons seemed content in the knowledge that their flat defence would constantly frustrate Cov, errors in abundance would follow and the reliable boot of Aled Thomas would then apply the rest.

The worst possible start which is not what Coventry wanted happened in under two minutes. From a line out in the home ‘’22’’ a long throw went horribly awry, the Welsh were able to gather, did the ball go slightly forward, but whatever, Coventry’s midfield opened up for centre Mackey to stride in for Thomas to convert with ease.

In truth and reality it did not get much better, Cov’s one real inspiration Joey Carlisle was short with a 55 metre penalty attempt with Thomas increasing the Welsh lead to 13 -0 at half time with two penalties. The Blue and Whites it was believed had reached the opposition ‘’22’’ once, even that point being possibly slightly generous.

Surely it could only improve, in isolated pockets it did marginally. Cov desperately needed to score first, they did through a 40 metre penalty from Joey Carlisle, frustratingly any advantage being given away for within three minutes another penalty had been conceded for Thomas to land successfully from 36 metres.

Finally on 64 minutes a ray of hope as an advance on the Dragons line was halted illegally with visiting captain Bonner-Evans being yellow carded. From the close in penalty, instead of kicking for goal, great vision by Joey Carlisle saw the on loan fly half punt to the corner, James Lewis only just being held up. Not to be denied the Coventry forwards, at last finding some fire were able to force their way over for prop Jamie Hall to claim his maiden club try, Carlisle’s reliable boot applying the difficult conversion.

10-16 and was there reason still for hope ? Not really as it turned out. Thomas, now approaching 100 points for the season coolly landed a fourth penalty to take Coventry out of potential bonus point territory once again, Carlisle’s attempt from 40 metres on 73 minutes agonisingly rebounding back off a post to sum up Cov’s night.

The home side did attempt one last effort to pull something out, nothing came of it with London Welsh quite content at the end to run down the clock and build more home frustrations; leaving it has to be said much to ponder and analyse. 

Coventry. Ben Russell, James Lewis, Phil Mackenzie, Chris Lewis, Romain Plantey, Joey Carlisle, Nathan Jones, Scott Roberts, Jo Merrigan, Jamie Hall, Sam Herrington, Ben Dechartres, Jamie Miller (Capt), Richie Bignell, Aaron Carpenter.

Replacements; Ross McMillan for Merrigan, Kevin Davis for Roberts, Rob Dugard for Hall, Arthur Brenton for Dechartres, Henno Venter for Carpenter, Mike Walls for Jones, Fangatapu Apikotoa for Chris Lewis. 

Coventry; Try Jamie Hall. Conversion and Penalty goal; Joey Carlisle

London Welsh; Try; Paul Mackey. Conversion; Aled Thomas. Penalty goals; Thomas 4.