By Paul Smith 
Just a month into pre-season Coventry Rugby head coach Alex Rae believes his club’s 2024/25 squad has the potential to provide the Butts Park Arena faithful with another thrilling season’s entertainment.
Over the course of the last two campaigns Cov secured back-to-back third-place finishes in the Championship with some dazzling attacking rugby.
Wingers Jimmy Martin and Ryan Hutler plus centre Will Wand finished last year in the upper reaches of the league’s try-scoring charts while the blue-and-whites topped the 100 try mark despite playing only 20 league games in 2023/24 following the collapse of Jersey Reds.
Cov’s squad has undergone some reshaping over the summer and six weeks ahead of the new league season their head coach likes what he sees from this year’s cohort.
“We have a really exciting new group and watching them in training I think fans’ favourites will soon appear among them,” Rae said.
“You don’t want to put pressure on the players, but sometimes you see something they do on the training pitch and think ‘that’s the reason we’ve brought you here.’
“On occasions you realise they are even better players than you’d thought they were and when that happens you get a real buzz.”
Rae acknowledges that some good players have left Cov in the last few months with centres Wand and Will Rigg winning Premiership contracts, Will Chudley entering retirement and others moving on as contracts ended.
Integrating new recruits and adapting quickly is therefore a priority in the brutally fast-moving world of professional rugby.
“The players who left obviously did a brilliant job and they’re not forgotten but we can’t spend time looking in the rear-view mirror as everything moves on quickly,” Rae said.
“We’ve retained a really good core of senior players especially among the forwards while we have some really exciting new faces in the backs
“In all 13 new players arrived on the first day back after the summer break so the first thing for us is getting to know them, how they tick and working out how they learn best.
“When getting a new group together how you connect is really important in the early stages of development and we are always mindful of that.”
Cov’s fans get a first look at their new squad when Birmingham Moseley visit for a pre-season friendly on August 24th.
Cov then host newly-promoted league rivals Chinnor on Friday September 13th a week before their Championship campaign gets underway at London Scottish.
Pre-season friendlies at the Butts Park Arena:
August 24th (3pm kick off) Coventry Rugby v Birmingham Moseley
September 13th (7.30pm kick off) Coventry Rugby v Chinnor
These games are included in season memberships which are available here: https://www.coventryrugby.co.uk/membership/
Match tickets are available via this link: https://www.coventryrugby.co.uk/tickets/
