By John Wilkinson HEAD coach Nick Walshe accepted that Coventry were some way below their best against Bishop’s Stortford while conceding that an off-day is bound to occur over the course of an eight-month season.
“It was a stop-start game, but I just felt we didn’t get into our game at all for whatever reason,” said Walshe after the 30-27 win which saw Cov go top of National League One.
“Sometimes that happens, but the important thing is we found a way to win.
“There will be times in a 30-game season when we don’t play well and when no matter what we try it’s not going to work.
“Luckily, we’ve come through a game where we’ve really struggled. We were our own worst enemies, but we found a way to win which was really crucial.
“We took five points out of the game, which is what we wanted, and we can move on to next week, try to freshen up a little bit and make sure we are spot on for next week at Fylde as we need to be.”
Cov were behind four times on Saturday before Will Maisey’s penalty, three minutes into stoppage time, saw the home side through.
Sad Walshe: “You have to give Bishop’s Stortford a lot of credit, they played really well, but it was far too close.
“We were a little bit scrappy in the first half, although I thought we looked dangerous every time we had the ball and we did score three tries.
“I think we just needed to settle down, but the whole thing carried on into the second half and we just couldn’t settle into the game.
“We struggled in pretty much every area – we weren’t our usual clinical or efficient self, and when that happens, no matter how many experienced players you’ve got or what team you’ve got, you will find it difficult. Their tails went up and our tails went down.
“We were scratching around to find a bit of comfort out there and just trying to get a little bit of structure back into it, but whatever we did we just kept messing up which was a shame.
“The injury to Pete White wasn’t good, but Dave Brazier is a great player to have coming on, and when Rob Knox came off it probably did disrupted us a little bit – Sam Tuitupou had to come back on and he’d had a little bit of a knock – but to be honest, at the end of the day we were just not at the races for a while.”
X-rays confirmed that White (ankle) and Knox (hand) have not broken any bones but the full extent of their injuries continues to be assessed.
