By Paul Smith 
Ampthill visit the Butts Park Arena on Saturday when Coventry seek to make it four-wins-from-four and reinforce their charge for a top-two Championship finish.
Alex Rae’s team clinched a hard-fought 21-27 win at Dillingham Park in November and ahead of the return game Cov’s head coach admitted facing the ‘Mob’ can be something of a step into the unknown.
“Ampthill are a tenacious, tough side who are always difficult to play against,” he said.
“Their relationship with Saracens also means you never quite know who will be playing for them. The Premiership clubs don’t have games this week so it is possible Ampthill will be loaded with on-loan Saracens or we might end up playing the same side they put out last weekend.
“Those things are out of our control so there’s no point wasting time on them. We have therefore spent this week focussing on being the best version of ourselves.”
In total Cov have registered 92 tries (plus three penalty tries) in 21 league and cup games this season and Rae confirmed that playing an entertaining brand of rugby is important to him.
“We could come to Saturday and kick the leather off the ball but that isn’t our way as we like to entertain, play a good style of rugby, score tries and get our fans out of their seats,” he said.
“At times we’ve done that quite well this year, but we have also made some mistakes through trying to play that way.
“The players know we won’t criticise them for trying to play exciting rugby but we also have to respect the ball and make good decisions and that’s down to us as coaches and what we do in training.”
The Blue-and-Whites have scored 137 points and 19 tries over the last three weeks in claiming bonus-point wins over basement trio Cambridge, Caldy and Chinnor.
However, their head coach says there is still plenty of room for improvement in their attack, defence and discipline.
Rae said: “In this block of three games we’ve scored plenty of tries and as a result we’re averaging close to 50 points per game. To be honest that is nice but we’re still nowhere near where we need to be with our attack.
“You’re in a good place when you’re being critical after scoring 49 points but we left a few tries out there and there were bits of our game we weren’t especially happy with.
“We’ve also leaked a few tries at the other end and that’s something that is keeping (defence coach) James Scaysbrook awake at night.
“We also concede too many penalties at times which allows teams to enter our 22 too easily. Sometimes that’s decision-making, sometimes it’s refereeing and sometimes it’s a result of pressure being applied by opponents so there’s plenty for us to work on.”
Tickets for Cov’s home game against Ampthill on Saturday can be purchased at https://www.coventryrugby.co.uk/tickets/matchday-tickets/
