By Toby Costar 
Director of Rugby Rowland Winter was full of joy at full-time and insists that the performances have been on a constant incline during pre-season.
Coventry Rugby claimed a third successive win of pre-season on Saturday, a 55-14 win over local city rivals Wasps at Butts Park Arena and the 33-year-old insists that a win against a local opposition is a sweet feeling.
“To put 50 points on a Wasps side, local rivals, whoever they have out, academy or not is always pleasing and it’s a good reward for the crowd who were here today,” said Winter.
After all the built up of this game, Winter admits that his coaching team worked tirelessly all week to make sure the sides performance was right.
He said: “The performance was a big improvement from last week, away at Leinster we got the win and scored some good tries, but our performance wasn’t good enough and Nick Walshe and Louis Deacon have been working really hard with the boys all week to make sure we really kicked on.
“I think the last seven days have probably been the best week of the summer and to finish it off today and also the strong performance on Friday night, it has been a good weekend.
“Our scrum was dominant throughout and that gave us a really good platform and once we tidied up the lineout as well we looked pretty much in control of the game. We scored some lovely tires as the game went on.
Cov have scored 24 tries during a festival pre-season for Winter’s men and the young Director of Rugby believed his side would come good during the second period of the game.
He continued: “I think it was just general control of the game, Wasps made lots of changes, but we started to make more control of the game, we put more pressure on them and the longer the game went on the slicker side.
“We looked and its good preparation and a good building block for the game next week. We are under no illusions that Jersey is going to be another step up from today and we are ready for that, we have another big week of training and then off we go.”
With a bumper crowd of 2677 on Saturday, Winter is hoping for more of the same as the side welcome Jersey Reds to Butts Park Arena next Saturday in their return to the Championship.
He added” “I think there is a buzz in Coventry at the moment as a city and we are leading the way with that. There is excitement around the rugby club and us moving forward and have over two and a half thousand people here and I am sure there are a spare few sets of seats for next Saturday is a really good build up and anticipation for returning back to the league is a big one, there is a real excitement and buzz in the squad as well.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcGghFAivPE&feature=youtu.be
