By John Wilkinson 
COACH Brendan Burke is backing Coventry’s attacking approach to games, but with a call for more consistency and concentration.
Saturday’s 35-27 win over Esher featured some outstanding home tries mixed with missed opportunities, erratic handling and a lack of focus which allowed the visitors to build a 22-10 lead early in the second half.
Cov found a way to come back and win, but it was a somewhat muted changing room afterwards and backs coach Burke conceded that it was a disappointing performance.
“I think the worst thing is that the lads know they under-performed and we as coaches expect standards which weren’t met,” he said.
“There’s still plenty to work on. It’s frustration that there is such a variation between games, we play some outstanding rugby one week and then we can be appalling the next.
“We need to find a level where we consistently play well. It’s very disappointing, especially for me as a backs coach. There are just too many mistakes.
“The lads were seeing the space and were trying to exploit it, but the execution wasn’t good enough – too many balls were just behind the players, and that’s not the way we play normally.
“How we play is exciting and it’s great to see the lads having a go, but if we’re going to do it our core skills need to be a whole lot better.”
Added Burke: “We scored probably one of our best tries of the year to take the lead when we just did something simple, but then we let them in for one straight away, we seemed to switch off, and we let them in for two more easy tries before half-time.
“I think we looked very flat coming on to the pitch, the lads just weren’t mentally right and showed that in the first half when they didn’t front up.
“We were carrying a few lads and in this league, with a squad like ours, we need the whole 20 to front up. Today too many of the lads just weren’t at the races.”
