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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2019 13:21 by AdminBTCov.

Fair assessment, Oram MOTM for me.

Like carniege if Hartpury keep this squad together I have to say I fancy Richmond for the drop.....

We could have easily been on the reverse of a 4-1 today, we’ll play/have played better this season and lose!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2019 20:24 by CovBlueLou.

Hartpury have to play away at

Ealing
Jersey
London Irish
Yorkshire Carnegie

I venture to suggest they won't get much from those

Hartpury v Richmond next week is massive. Their other home games are, Nottingham, Bedford, London Scottish

Agreed JB. Tough for them. Hopefully.

I thought we played pretty well, but lacked a little spark and imagination, then Dan Lewis came on, and wow, he was excellent. He saved a certain try, and seemed to lift the whole back row a few notches with his enthusiasm. A certain top prospect for the future, and hopefully in a Coventry shirt

A really dismal game to be honest. Box kick to you and box kick back to me. If Tom Kessell is being told to do that, then he looked pretty fed up when subbed. Fantastic tackling all afternoon from Cov against a combative Hartpury side. At 60 minutes Hartpury looked the confident side and the crowd was silent. The bench came on and at last we stopped the bloody box kick and played and passed with pace to players running onto the ball and not static and got the crucial couple of tries to win the game.
A crucial win Cov.
Onwards and upwards.

I agree. George Oram was superb today .Tackled like a rock all day against a Hartpury side going forward and then when Cov got the upper hand in the last quarter took some great angles running onto the ball and gained front foot ball aplenty. Fantastic stuff

I thought Cov looked desperate to win and, as a result, played a disjointed game against some dogged opposition which had all the hallmarks of a Rest of the World XV.
The cynical addition of those extra players to the Hartpury squad makes me certain in my hope that it’ll be they who get relegated, and not Richmond. Which makes Hartpury’s game against Richmond in London next week a real bum squeezer.
So, excercising my old-age-negativity, I’m rooting for Hartpury to be relegated from the Championship and Bristol from the Premiership.

Yep. Lewis (I only alluded to changes - I perhaps could have expanded) certainly helped change the shape of the game.
We have a gem that doesn't need too much polishing there, so let's see how he progresses.
There are exciting prospects all over the shop just now. Hopefully they'll stay for the journey.

England showed how effective the kicking game can be last week. Unfortunately Cov are really poor at dealing with the high ball which makes the style of play they adopted on Saturday totally pointless.
I think maybe the significance of the tie seemed to get to the players. There was nothing to lose against Bedford but the possibility of putting further distance between us and the bottom of the table appeared to stifle ambition.

I thought we were pretty poor yesterday and looking down the throat of a defeat in the second half.

Players coming off the bench seemed to make a big difference especially Pete White and Dan Lewis as already mentioned. But also, and not for the first time in recent weeks, Latu Maakafi! His passion for the game and the Cov jersey is immense. I find it hard to recall an occassion when he hasnt put in a shift and was fired up in the rolling maul that resulted in Scott Russells try.

George Oram seems to be a MOM contender every week and put in another grafting and bruising shift. A worry that he is out of contract in the summer and no news of him signing?

defenses seemed to be on top for much of the game which meant that what little ball cov secured they could not use to speed up play and bring the backs into the game. too many penalties conceded & line lost or spoilt was really frustrating.
credit to the team for grinding out a win after managing to get some good field position from scrum dominance on the last 15 mins.
standouts were oram , tolmie & adams who i thought had a cracking game in defence & attack. jubbs arrival for the second half improved the lin eout. kessel put in a good shift covering & organising well and making a few breaks, and mention also for maisey whose conversions & penalties , some from wide out, made a big difference.
finally another +2000 crowd and the pitch whilst far from perfect held up wel, despite the rain overnight.

Quote:

HoboAl
George Oram seems to be a MOM contender every week and put in another grafting and bruising shift. A worry that he is out of contract in the summer and no news of him signing?

Given that we have only so far heard about 2 re-signings, I'm not sure there is much to be concerned with, is there? Unless you know something we don't.

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All views expressed in this post, are my own



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2019 19:55 by PaulRossborough.

And how refreshing that there have been no negative comments about the officiating.. shows what a difference a good and experienced ref makes!!

A tentative Cov and a subdued crowd for the first hour. Poor decision not to take a fairly easy 3pts to take us 10up. The kick for corner and resulting lineout was one of a number lost during this period. Thereafter we struggled to get our hands on the ball and when we did, it was given up too cheaply. The penalties conceded tally was again too high. On the plus side, defence was good and Hartpolshire never threatened our line first half.
With 20 left, we finally played to our strengths - we took territory through the forwards - Oram and Jubb outstanding - and the backs put pace on the ball. Frustrating it took so long to work out.
Even with their mercenaries, Hartpolshire will take the drop - across both games we have made them look better than they are.
Play up Rich!

The highlight of the game for me was watching a top class referee officiate, and JP'S dialogue with the players and touch judges was a joy to see. Always on top of the action, and explaining why he made the decisions he had to make. The respect showed towards him from the players was clear to see, and testament to his performance was seeing supporters queuing up to shake his hand, and praise him for his performance at the end. A good day at the office indeed JP, and look forward to watching you here again soon

Missed a fair bit of offside though - Touch Judges still don't help refs enough in this important area of the game.

It’s true he did let some offsides go unpunished, but he applied that leniency to both sides because Cov were as guilty as the Rest of the World team. In my opinion, JP was as good a ref as we’ve seen for a long time. He was excellent at Bedford and was no less good on Saturday.

Yep - no intent or bias - can only have one line of sight - hence need for pro-active TJs.

Quote:

Duckham walked on water
Missed a fair bit of offside though - Touch Judges still don't help refs enough in this important area of the game.

Some referees don't want (or need) "help" from their AR's. Whether JP needed (or wanted) it would have been covered in hi sbrief to the AR's pre-match.

Also, I'd venture that those guys were probably in a better position to judge whether a player was offside and interfering or not.

Quote:

Sam Skennel

Quote:

Duckham walked on water
Missed a fair bit of offside though - Touch Judges still don't help refs enough in this important area of the game.

Some referees don't want (or need) "help" from their AR's. Whether JP needed (or wanted) it would have been covered in hi sbrief to the AR's pre-match.

Also, I'd venture that those guys were probably in a better position to judge whether a player was offside and interfering or not.

I'd also venture that they are in a better position but still appear to ignore the offside line.

A well-respected ex international pundit has also highlighted the fact that ARs need to flag up offside more often as it's stifling attacking rugby.