A good start, but we have to take it one step at a time – director of rugby Rowland Winter’s assessment of Coventry’s opening day performance in a 57-14 win over Loughborough Students.
“It’s a good start, definitely the first half and I was pleased to go in at 35-0, but there’s lots to work on and lots of areas that we need to tighten up and sharpen for next week,” said Winter.
“We knew that would happen but, overall, I’m very happy to start the season off with a five-point win.
“There are lots of areas we can work on. There was some sloppy play and I think we should have had a few more points on the board by half-time. Eight tries is good, but I wanted ten.
We probably should have kicked on a bit more in the second half, but we got a bit tired – Loughborough definitely pushed us for fitness as we expected them to do.
“We’ve got high standards here and there are things we need to fine tune before Moseley – they had a good win at Fylde, so it will be tough to go away next week and they’ll definitely be the favourites for that.
“We set ourselves a goal for today, we’ve achieved that, and on Monday we’ll revisit and set out a goal for next week. One week at a time.
“We’re far too raw and naïve, and a new group thst hasn’t settled yet , so we can’t look any further than the end of our nose at the moment.
“We want to play physical and aggressive rugby, we want to score tries; we’re happy to take them on up front in the driving mauls or the scrums, or move the ball around. Today we executed all areas of that, but I still want a bit more.”
Read John Butler’s review of the game in the Match Reports section.