Hull Ionians 12 Coventry RFC 41 by John Wilkinson.
By John Wilkinson. Coventry Telegraph.
September 9 2013
A great start for Coventry who, while far from perfection, showed plenty of promise for a long National League One campaign and handed out a harsh lesson to the division new boys.
Cov will not be happy with the amount of possession that the home side enjoyed, particularly in the opening quarters of each half, on a hard pitch which, more brown than green, suited their open game plan.
But while Ionians were clearly intent on avoiding contact with Cov’s forwards as much as they could and showed admirable discipline – conceding their first penalty after 53 minutes – they didn’t have the runners or the experience to back it up.
Cov’s defence was, in the main, as frugal as last season, and when opportunities did present themselves at the scoring end, they were ruthless in their finishing, particularly in the first half, which was not always the case last season.
That is a valuable added element to Cov’s game and, with the maturing Will Maisey and ever-combative Lewis Barker providing the link at half-back to a strong pack, this was, for a first competitive outing for a match-day squad which was pretty much an even split of old and new, highly encouraging.
Cov got off to a flyer, driving over from their first line-out on the home 22 for Danny Wright to touch down.
Cliffie Hodgson added the conversion, but they were pinned in their own half for the next 15 minutes before a turnover saw Jacques Le Roux break out of defence and, linking with Barry Davies and Rob Nash, launch a counter which ended in Mark Kohler sending Davies clear to the posts, Hodgson again improving.
Two chances, two scores, and three minutes later Cov took play through three phases off the back of a scrum on the home ten-metre line and Will Hurrell squeezed over in the left corner for 19-0.
Ionians responded with a well-take try down the short side for winger Danny Smith, but promptly undid the good work when a misjudged pass saw Wright step in to rip the ball away from the catcher and gallop in from 20 metres for Cov’s bonus-point fourth try which Hodgson improved with an excellent kick.
The third quarter was largely dominated by Ionians but brought only a Hodgson penalty, yellow cards for Smith – for a deliberate knock on after Barker and Le Roux carved open the home cover on a break from midfield – and then for Wright, two minutes later, for a high tackle, before Mark Wigham claimed Hull’s second try, from a maul, which Chris Reakes converted.
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In contrast it appears that when Hull Is got possession they kept it presumably because they had good continuity skills but also because they couldn't make much headway against our defence? When that happens you usually find the defending team giving away a lot of penalties and suffering on the scorebaord.
It looks quite a good sign if we can defend well without giving away penalties. Credit to Hull Is if they had good continuity but ultimate credit to our defence!
My analysis is probably a bit too simplistic (especially as I wasn't there and have no idea if any of the above is true) but it reminds me of games where you don't have much territory but that is because everytime you get into the opposition's half they give a penalty away and you kick a number of long range penalties and therefore never get close to the line.
Let's face it how many times in the past few seasons have we bemoaned the fact that we have had plenty of ball but not the cutting edge to turn that into points on the scorebaord. This seems the opposite - a nice problem to have as long as your defence is up to the mark.