Coventry 22 Roth 15

Andy Northey
By Roth Admin
October 24 2004

Rotherham suffered their first League defeat of the season, going down 22-15 at Coventry. Playing at the brand new Butts Park Arena in atrocious conditions, Rotherham found the home pack far too dominant, especially in the first half.

Rotherham improved in the second period, but the sending off of Coventry’s Samoan number 8 just 2 minutes in was a significant factor in this. Opposing teams are beginning to target Roth’s weakness in defending the driving maul and ultimately this led to their downfall.

The game however started brightly for Roth. Just 78 seconds had elapsed when Roth stole line out ball on half way. After spreading the ball along the back line Strettle collected and made 30 metres down the right, as the full back closed in Strettle kicked on for Jason Keyter to collect and breach the whitewash for a fine try. Pez converted for a 7-0 lead.

Coventry replied on five minutes with a Jared Barker penalty. As the game settled down and with the Coventry pack having much the better of things, replacement hooker Dave Addleton was driven over on 15 minutes from a five metre catch and drive. Barker knocked over the conversion to give Coventry a 10-7 lead – a lead that they would maintain to the end.

On 36 minutes with Coventry well on top another catch and drive enabled Addleton to score his and Coventry’s 2nd try. Barker was unsuccessful this time with the conversion.

On half time a superb 60 metre kick by pez was well chased by Lee Blackett who forced the Coventry full back to take the ball over his own goal line for what should have been a five metre scrum to Roth. However inexplicably the referee deemed that Blackett was in front of the kicker and brought play all the way back.

Not one of the referees’s better decisions on the day, but then again he didn’t make too many throughout.

Three minutes into stoppage time another driving maul had Roth in trouble. This time Neil Briggs was adjudged to have stopped it illegally and was promptly shown the yellow card. From the resulting penalty it was like watching Groundhog Day. Yet again another catch and drive saw Addleton driven over for his hat trick. Barker converted to take Coventry into the break with a 22-7 advantage.

Rotherham started the 2nd half brightly and when Strettle received the ball on the right and cut back inside Roth’s hopes were raised. However Coventry’s number 8 Dan Farani took Strettle out with a high and dangerous tackle. The referee had little option but to give the big Samoan a straight red card. Pez converted the penalty to reduce the arrears to 12 points.

With Coventry down to 14 men and arguably their most potent forward off the pitch, Roth came back into the game. On 62 minutes after a sustained period of Rotherham pressure, Ramiro Pez put in a right to left cross field kick. Michael Wood charged down the left flank into the goal area to catch the ball for Roth’s 2nd try. Unfortunately in very difficult conditions the ball slipped out of his hands and he knocked on. It was possibly the turning point for Roth?

Coventry’s replacement hooker – hat trick hero Dave Addleton – went off midway through the 2nd half. As a result, from that point on all scrums were uncontested. This hurt Rotherham as this had been one of the positives on a black day; in fact they were dominant at the scrum. It was mooted afterwards that this was a ploy by the Coventry coaching staff.

Thirteen minutes from time and Roth were rewarded after a period of good pressure. The ball came out of a ruck and onto Pez who appeared isolated and with few options available. However he found the pace to run around the Coventry defence to go over in the right hand corner for an unconverted try and seal a bonus point.

For all of Roth’s huff and puff in the closing stages they never really looked like penetrating the dogged Coventry defence again – albeit one that was short on numbers. In truth Roth appeared to be running out of ideas and when referee Nigel Higginson blew for full time, it gave Coventry a deserved victory.

Full Time: Coventry 22 Rotherham 15

Roth’s hierarchy will be concerned that opposing teams seem to be targeting the driving maul/catch and drive as a weapon against them. With bigger and better packs to face coupled with the heavy winter pitches, Roth may be about to suffer their own winter of discontent!

Add to that Riaan Olckers has played his last game for Roth and Colin Noon returns to Leicester next month and it’s not hard to imagine further defeats on the horizon. New recruits in the pack are essential if Roth have any genuine aspirations to compete at the upper end of this division.

Afterwards Roth’s assistant coach Andy Northey reflected, “It was not a good performance, there were lots of endeavour and no lack of effort though. We got beat by a team that didn’t play any rugby – we shouldn’t have played any rugby. We passed the ball – it was like a bar of soap – and we turned it over and put pressure on ourselves and unfortunately got beat.

In a nutshell we got beat trying to play rugby when the conditions weren’t suitable for doing so. Coventry played rock-solid wet weather rugby and came up with the result. They defended better than us and outplayed us in bad conditions.”

On the controversial uncontested scrum situation Northey added, “You won’t convince me that their hooker couldn’t have carried on! I’ll guarantee he’ll be playing next week and he’ll be training this week. We were on top in the scrums – they’ve used the system and done it very well and they took a good pressure opportunity away from us. Would I have done it? I don’t think I would but if they choose to do that, that’s up to them. The system is not right and if I’d paid money to watch that I’d have been disappointed. I’m not making any excuses because we didn’t play well enough to win this game.”

On a more positive not Andy warned, “If we play our best rugby, we back ourselves to beat anyone in this division!”

Ex Rotherham legend and current Coventry backs coach Mike Umaga said, “It felt strange to be involved in a game against Rotherham for the first time. We stuck to our game plan and that’s what you got to do against that have won five on the bounce.

Pre-game we thought the driving line outs could be an area where we could have some success against Rotherham and it proved to be the case. We’ve got a young and willing set of boys here who want to learn – similar to when I arrived at Rotherham.”

On the red card incident Mike stated, “It was a high shot, more careless than reckless – he (Farani) got done like a dummy!”




Roth Admin Man of the Match: Tough choice on a day like this, but Jason Keyter will be able to sleep soundly for his contribution.

Referee: Nigel Higginson


Rotherham:
15 Anthony Elliott, 14 Lee Blackett, 13 Peter Jorgensen, 12 Jason Keyter, 11 David Strettle, 10 Ramiro Pez, 9 Jacob Rauluni, 1 Jonathan Golding, 2 Neil Briggs, 3 John Rawson, 4 Jonathan Pendlebury, 5 Glen Kenworthy, 6 Adam Harrington, 7 Craig Short, 8 Mike Schmid.

Replacements:
16 Richard Emms, 17 Rod Latham, 18 Colin Noon, 19 Tim Maslanyk, 20 Tom Rice, 21 Tom Eaton, 22 Michael Wood.

Coventry:
15 Jared Barker, 14 Craig Richards, 13 John Cannon, 12 Nik Witkowski, 11 Alex Telea, 10 Matt Leek, 9 Shaun Perry, 1 Nick Cox, 2 Alex Gluth, 3 Adrian Olver ©, 4 Paul Clapham, 5 Ben Gulliver, 6 Dave Campton, 7 Gareth Gravell, 8 Dan Farani.

Replacements:
16 Dave Addleton, 17 Kisi Pulu, 18 Rob Chrystie, 19 Greg Freeman, 20 Rich Sivetter, 21 Simon Brocklehurst, 22 Richard Davies.