By Toby Costar 
Coventry Rugby Director of Rugby Rowland Winter and his coaching team were pleased with the outcome of the 2018/19 Greene King IPA Championship and Championship Cup fixtures.
He said: “We are really excited to get going now. All the fixtures bring tough challenges, but we are working hard to make sure we are well prepared.”
The Reds travel to Butts park Arena for the first game of the season and Winter believes previous experience against Jersey will stand them in good stead.
Winter continued: “We’ve got some experience against jersey from the last few years, and we are looking forward to welcoming them to Coventry to kick start the new season.
“We have travelled to Jersey in pre-season the last two years, and last summer we set the target of promotion and making this a regular league fixture between us, so it’s great to get them first up in the draw.”
With a newly-formatted Championship Cup will consist of six matches, three home and away games against Nottingham, Yorkshire Carnegie and Doncaster Knights.
This leads into a knock-out stage, with the quarter-final and semi-final being played in February 2019, and the final commencing on the first weekend of May 2019.
Rowland Winter believes the brand-new Cup format will bring an exciting new focus for his playing squad aside from league fixtures.
He added: “The cup schedule is interesting, and creates a different focus for the team, plus it’s another new competition that we are really looking forward to.”
