THE positives outweighed the negatives for director of rugby Rowland Winter as Coventry recorded a second successive away win with a 36-27 victory at Cambridge.
Cov led 22-5 going into stoppage time at the end of the first half and 36-15 midway through the third quarter, but failed to fully press home the advantage and again had two players yellow carded.
“Today’s performance was good in parts and when we worked hard we were the dominant side,” said Winter. “But when we took our foot off the gas or gave away silly penalties it, allowed Cambridge back in the game and they showed how dangerous they can be.
“But we’ve got a bonus-point win away from home, it’s our second away win on the trot and our fourth overall on a bit of a run, and I’m very happy with that.
“We scored five tries and we think we should have had more – we felt we should have had a penalty try right at the end, but the referee didn’t see it that way. We didn’t get any reward for our scrummaging all day, but that’s his style and that’s rugby.
“We wanted to start strongly. Cambridge have a reputation for coming out of the box pretty fast, especially at home, and we wanted to beat them to it and make sure we showed that we can go wing to wing and go through the middle of them, and not just rely on a dominant pack.
“Their pack did a lot better than in the game here, but we handled them well and we were just a bit sloppy in some areas that they pounced on.
”It was really down to when we switched off, so if we can stay switched on and keep 15 people on the pitch, there’s not a side in this league that we’re worried about.”
Added Winter: “The yellow cards we are getting are not necessarily through ill-discipline, it’s through not working hard and so putting ourselves in positions where the referee can make a decision.
“We’ve got Rosslyn Park coming up now, so our attentions now turn to that and what will be a very tough game at home.”