SEDGLEY PARK 17
COVENTRY 32
National League Division One

RAIN had fallen continually before, during and after this match, but as Tigers backs’ coach Andy Northey said: “It’s the same for both sides and if we can’t play in the rain in this country then we might as well pack it in right now.”

Both Northey and Director of Rugby Tim Fourie were understandably furious at what they saw from their charges.

“We had no one to grab hold of the ball, slow it down and take control. You can’t play in wet weather if you don’t keep the ball and build up possession,” said Fourie.

“We didn’t get any go-forward, we defended poorly and when we did get the ball our execution was pathetic. I was stood watching the game with Andy and was saying to him over and over again: ‘That’s what we were talking about doing… and that… and that,’ the trouble was it was when Coventry had the ball that we were saying it.

“We’ve told them it was poor, they know it was poor so what we need to do now is see how they react in training this week and against Doncaster next Saturday.”

Northey, who had that ‘I’m going to hit someone’ stare in his eyes, added: “They wanted it; they came out and were like a dog with a bone. We just pussyfooted about and let them dominate. When we got the ball most of the time we panicked and spilled it.

“It is only the first game and we are not panicking but some of the players have to ask themselves some serious questions. Some of them turned up and just went through the motions and did not produce anything.

“This was the first game of the season and you would have thought that having trained hard all summer they would have flown out of the blocks, rain or no rain, but they didn’t. Well we will not accept that and we will deal with it harshly.”

The crowd had cheered as the Tigers took to the field resplendent in their new Kooga kit, which has seen a return to the traditional claret and gold hoops.

But not even that and the seven players making their debuts could conjure up the hunger needed to beat both the conditions and the opposition.

It was the visitors, no doubt still smarting from the two defeats they suffered at the Tigers’ hands last season, who adapted to the conditions, showing a winning hunger and the necessary composure to overwhelm the Tigers in the second half, after the first 40 minutes had ended all square at 17-17.

After the break the Tigers simply did not have the power or wit to hit back, as the visitors ran in three more unanswered tries, guaranteeing them a five point haul from this opening day clash. Had kicker Ben Russell been on target with his boot, Coventry could have rattled up 45 points.

Coventry took the lead with just one 1 minute 10 seconds gone. A flowing move from left to right was prodded on when stand-off Ben Russell chipped diagonally over the onrushing Sedgley defence to the right corner flag for the chasing fullback Apoua Stewart, who shrugged off debutant Saula Roko’s half-hearted attempted tackle to go over for a try converted by Russell.

The alarm bells appeared to have been silenced when three minutes later committed, driving forward play featuring another Fijian new boy, Number 8 Ledua Jope, along with fellow debutant lock Ed Norris and skipper Jimmy Ponton took the ball over the Coventry line, where prop Gerallt Evans got the downward pressure to claim the touchdown, and with Phil Jones’ boot adding the two extra points it was all square at 7-7.

Jones then kicked a 35-metre penalty to make it 10-7, but on 16 minutes Coventry’s speed of thought caught the Tigers out, and a quickly taken tap-penalty began a move that saw the ball fed out to the left, where flanker Tom Johnson pounced from just a few metres out to restore the visitors’ lead at 10-12.

Sedgley were giving away too many ‘panic’ penalties and from the second of two in quick succession Coventry kicked for a five-metre lineout and performed a textbook catch-and-drive with prop Carl Rimmer claiming the try to extend the visitors’ lead to 10-17.

However, with two minutes to go before the break Coventry had prop Niall Treston yellow-carded and the Tigers managed to build-up some forward pressure resulting in a penalty 10-meres from the visitors’ posts.

Phil Jones quickly tapped and sent a looping miss-pass out to Roko, who went over in the right-hand corner. Jones then kicked a tricky conversion to ensure the scoreboard read 17-17 at half-time.

Unfortunately that was where the Tigers’ scoring ended. Not even the sight of groundsman Tony Bolton re-marking the pitch, after the rain had washed away the lines could spur them into claming further points, as Coventry stepped up another gear to run in three unanswered tries from scrum-half Michael Walls, a second for flanker Johnson followed by one for fellow backrower John O’Connor.

The introduction of flanker Jon Skurr, props Phil Gazzola and Gareth Roberts, along with another debutant, hooker Mark Jones on loan from Sale Sharks, gave the Sedgley cause a bit of a lift but not enough to haul them back into the game.
So the memory of that sweet, one point win at Coventry 12 months ago on the opening day of the 2005-6 season proved to be just a that, a memory


SEDGLEY PARK: De Jager, Koroinaulivou, Briers, Voortman, Roko, Jones, Leck (Albinson J 64), Evans (Roberts 68), Roddam (Jones M 68), Thomas (Gazzola 59), Swart, Norris, Newton, Ponton, Jope (Skurr 59), Livesey, Wilkinson.

COVENTRY: Stewart (Myles 73), Montague (Toft 67), Dixon, Geraghty, Johnson K, Russell, Walls (Duncan 76), Rimmer (Wyn-Davies 67), Riswell, Treston (Brits 73), Tonkin, Rheeders, Johnson T (Campton 80), O’Connor (Venter 78), Johnson W, James.