By Paul Smith 
Head coach Alex Rae has been delighted by his squad’s reaction to last Saturday’s home defeat against Hartpury.
Cov went into the round five Championship clash with high hopes on the back of a 15-match unbeaten run at the Butts Park Arena.
But in front of another bumper home crowd of 3146 Rae’s team were unable to convert a 22-21 lead at the hour mark into anything more than a four-try bonus point as the visitors recorded a convincing 29-47 win.
Cov’s trip to Cambridge is still more than a week away, and based on what he has seen over the last few days their head coach says they will be more than ready.
“I’ve noticed this week in training that we have a totally different beast out there,” he said.
“That’s pleasing for me to see as it shows that the lads are hurting and have a bit of a point to prove.
“It was the manner in which we lost that really upset us. We’re known for our fighting spirit as our fans have regularly seen and watching some of them leave with ten minutes to go was especially gutting.
“I really wish we had a game this weekend as we’ve had a couple of the best training sessions of the season this week. On Thursday everything we tried worked and we were really clinical which we obviously weren’t against Hartpury.
“We have another week in which to dwell on things before playing Cambridge who will no doubt be licking their lips about facing us after seeing our last result.”
Having reviewed Cov’s performance against Hartpury Rae has little doubt that a lot of the problems his team faced were self-inflicted.
“Our scrum gave them a little window into the game then we made a huge amount of errors which they were able to capitalise on,” he said.
“We had 58 pieces of possession in the match and gave the ball back to them 23 times – you won’t win many games of rugby doing that.
“The way we looked after the ball just wasn’t good enough on the day which isn’t like us. Our proud home record is now gone after 14 months and as a group we are very disappointed.
“Credit to Hartpury – but in truth they didn’t have to be that good to win the game as we gifted them so much.”
Tickets for Coventry’s Championship clash with Nottingham on Boxing Day are available from: https://www.coventryrugby.co.uk/tickets/matchday-tickets/
