Coach’s viewpoint

BACKS coach Brendan Burke says Coventry will move on quickly from Saturday’s defeat at Blackheath with the focus on putting things right for the visit of Hartpury College.

Cov take on the unbeaten National League One leaders at Butts Park Arena on Saturday, and Burke believes it is an ideal opportunity for them to stand up and be counted.

“We’ve just go to say to ourselves what’s done is done, the game’s gone, and look forward – we’ve got the league leaders coming to us this week, so we’ve got to react and use the training sessions to put things right,” said Burke.

“The phrase is we’re a wounded cat, you’ve cornered us, and we’ve got to strike back.

“It’s all up to us now. Everyone will put us as underdogs against Hartpury, that means the pressure is off us, and they have got to come to our place where we have a 100 per cent record and perform.

“Now we’ve got to show who we are and what we’re made of. We’re looking forward to the next few days and will use them well.”

As backs coach, Burke was disappointed that Cov didn’t make the most of the opportunities presented by their scrum power in the first half.

“We had a dominant scrum, but we didn’t play off it when we might have done,” he said. “We got a few free balls where we could have had a dabble and used our strike plays, but we didn’t.

“After that, we didn’t get enough ball in the second half when I thought we played as individuals rather than as a team. We didn’t get our shots off when we needed to.

“Blackheath did quite well, but I think we played into their hands in a bit of the stuff we did. We created some space out wide but went into touch again, we were very lateral in some of the plays we did.

“They were a passive defence and when we started causing them some trouble, we just followed them into touch when we should have come off our wings and cut across the grain.

“We work very hard in the week, basically on simple stuff, nothing major, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with what we are doing. It’s just the execution at the moment, and it just didn’t work on Saturday.

“It was a bad day for all of us – we are very disappointed with the way we played, and very disappointed for the supporters who came down from Coventry and didn’t get the performance they deserved.

“We’ve got great support and we hope they will get behind us this Saturday as we aim to bounce back.”