A win is a win

IT wasn’t pretty, but director of rugby Rowland Winter was happy to come away with a 19-17 victory over Blaydon and make it four wins in a row.

After dominating the first half hour, Cov lost their way as Blaydon hauled themselves into the game to go in front in the 79^th minute of normal time.

But – as against Plymouth Albion two weeks earlier – Cov responded by going from one 22 to the other to set up an added time winner for Dan Rundle.

“We probably didn’t get out of second gear and we sort of stalled our way through,” said Winter.

“Blaydon put pressure on us, they kept going as we knew they would, but a win is a win, that’s four on the bounce now, and I’ll take a scrappy win at this point.”

“We made a lot of changes to the side from the previous week, but we still created lots of chances and made a lot of line breaks.

“We were pulled back two or three times for forward passes and we’ve not been as clinical as we have been at home in previous weeks, but we were still making those chances and that’s key. That shows the depth of our squad and the continuity we’ve got.

“It got really scrappy and we lacked a little bit of composure in the 10 to 15 minutes before half-time when we stopped tackling low, dropped our line speed and were drifting off them.

“We came out in the second half and put that right, but gradually the game became more of a scrappy affair, there was not much in it really, and everything was messy.

“But, again, the Cov side have come from under their posts to get the points and to do that, create as many chances as we did and get a win, I’m still reasonably happy.”

Added Winter: “We’ve got a lot to work on this week. Ampthill will be a tougher test than Blaydon were, and that’s no disrespect to Blaydon – they came here and fought for everything.

“We’ve got plenty to work with, there’s lots of competition for places and we’ve got another win before Ampthill.”