By John Wilkinson COVENTRY may have lost the battle at Billesley Common, but they certainly won the war up front – dominating the opposition in the set scrum to the delight of coach Boris Stankovich.
“I thought our scrum was excellent and it’s just disappointing that we didn’t get a lot more out of it in terms of points,” said Stankovich after Saturday’s 19-14 defeat by Birmingham Moseley.
“The boys have been working hard and, overall, if there has been one area where we’ve been very consistent it has been the scrum, right from the first game against Jersey up until now so, touch wood, that will continue
“Moseley got a yellow card at one point from a continuous build-up of pressure, but what we didn’t do was turn that pressure into points. I think there certainly was a case for a penalty try, but then again, the referee sees what he sees and we can’t argue with that, we just have to keep doing what we’re doing and make it count ourselves.
“I think we gave ourselves too much work to do in the second half in those sorts of conditions. When you’re trying to play catch-up rugby and it’s wet under foot and with a slippery ball, you’ve got to give yourself every chance within the first half and make sure you are there or thereabouts.
“Their two tries came off our mistakes, and that just left us with too much to do.
“We got back to 14-all but didn’t take it on from there and finish it off. That’s rugby. If boys want to go further, they’ve got to realise – right from the top down to whatever level they are playing at – that if you want to get results, you have got to be consistent in what you’re doing.
“It’s a real lesson for all the boys and in some ways it’s a good thing that we’ve taken a hit. Now we’ve got to build and go forward.”
