London Welsh v Coventry - Match Preview

By Mark W-J
January 27 2010

Last Saturday’s win at Doncaster means that London Welsh are all but assured of a place in the Championship promotion play-offs. We already know that Bees and our visitors this week, Coventry, will not be involved in the Top 8, a 15 point deduction for entering administration in the autumn ensuring that neither can catch their local rivals, Moseley, who currently occupy the final play-off berth.

The validity of the clubs’ respective points deductions has taken up an extraordinary amount of bandwidth in the last three weeks. Some people believe that any club entering administration should be automatically consigned to the relegation play-offs; others have pointed out the inequity of clubs who have lost a significant proportion of their playing squad due to financial mismanagement being allowed to sign an entirely new squad in anticipation of the play-offs; and some have even implied that Welsh somehow manipulated the recent financial difficulties in order to a) minimise the points deduction and b) afford the owners extra time to source additional investment.

Coventry arrive at ODP with just eight points – even without the 15 point deduction they would be fourteen points shy of a place in the Top 8. Their four wins have all come against teams in the bottom half of the table, although in the first game after owner Andrew Green packed his bags – played at Coventry City’s Ricoh Arena – they claimed a 15-15 draw with Bedford, courtesy of Canadian openside Aaron Carpenter’s 80^th minute try. Carpenter’s bagged four tries so far, to leave him one behind fellow flanker Jamie Miller who, having scored five in five games, left to join Bristol in November. Miller tops the indiscipline charts, too, with two yellows to add to the four he received last season – Michael Holford has also been the recipient of two of Welsh’s 10 yellows. Top points scorer is Worcester loanee Joey Carlisle with 38, one point ahead of former Saracen Ben Russell, although both Russell and Tongan Fangapatu Apikotoa (27 points) have a strike rate of over 70%.

The contribution of 10 tries from the back row is part of the reason that Coventry are the only team in the Championship for whom the forwards have scored more tries than the backs (16 v 14, with one penalty try). On the other hand, the top three teams in the league (Bristol, Exeter and Welsh) have conceded a combined total of only eight tries to opposition back-rows. In keeping with the club’s attacking tradition, half of Welsh’s 44 tries have been scored by the three-quarters; by a strange coincidence, half of the 50 tries conceded by Cov have also been scored by the opposition three-quarters.

Last year Cov claimed a league double over Welsh, their first since 2004-05. The 21-23 defeat at ODP at the end of November was secured with a drop-goal from fly-half Myles Dorrian from the final play of the game. In a see-saw match, the teams matched each other score-for-score, but ultimately the difference was the fly-half’s conversion of Chris Whitehead’s 68^th minute try – the hooker also touched-down in our 36-30 defeat at the Butts Park Arena in April. Seven days after Dorrian’s match-winning strike, Pirates fly-half Simon Whatling scored two drop-goals in his side’s 38-23 win at ODP, and Welsh haven’t conceded another one since – a total of 33 games.

The Coventry badge, following the style of the City’s coat of arms, features an elephant with three towers on its back. This apparently dates back to medieval times, when the elephant was supposedly believed to be strong enough to carry Coventry Castle upon its back. In addition, the enemy of the elephant was believed to be the dragon, which would purportedly eat baby elephants – the protection of its young was also a much-admired trait. Furthermore, it is believed that the legendary dragon-slayer St. George himself was born in Coventry and was buried at nearby Caludon Castle, although this all happened some 800 years before Coventry Castle - which the elephant carries - was built. Although the history on the pitch only dates back 101 years, that the clubs became such friendly rivals in the first place was obviously fate.

Posted by: The Dragons\\\' Den (IP Logged)

Date: 27/01/2010 13:35

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