Addleton salutes Cov's character after win over Wharfedale

FORWARDS coach Dave Addleton saluted his side’s strength of character as Coventry overcame three first-half injuries and a 22-0 deficit to beat Wharfedale 37-29 at the Butts Park Arena.Centre Todd Freemantle suffered a suspected broken jaw just eight minutes into his debut after coming on for injured centre Nat McDonald, who was stretchered off on the half hour after Cov had already lost full-back Ben Russell.

But with back row forward Seb Pearson playing out of position at centre, Cov – who had gone 22-0 down in just 13 minutes in an horrendous start to the game – turned round trailing 29-22 and dominated the second half to deny the visitors any further points.

“To get the win and five points after going 22-0 down is a huge thing,” said Addleton. “We’ve taken a massive step forward today.

“The boys who came off the bench were absolutely outstanding and it was a great show of character from everyone.”

Added Addleton: “I thought the lid on the coffin was coming down at 22-0. Everyone knew what they had to do from the start but we came out flat, which also happened last week and is something we have got to put right.

“We need to find out what gets them started and go from there – we’ve shown what we can do when we get it right, we can turn people over. At half-time we said we just had to keep playing to the things we’d worked on, go through our phases and hold on to the ball.

“Again our setpiece was good and there was some great driving play. The result is a huge positive, a big thing for everybody – we just have to keep working hard and strive to make things better.”