“I’m looking for an aggressive, combative performance for the whole 80 minutes,” said Maynard.

“They’re flying high with some big wins and the problems they are experiencing off the field don’t appear to be affecting the players.

“They’ve spent £1.2 million more on their squad this season than last and they are getting the results for it.

“They surprised us at our place with a very aggressive midfield press defence which caught us out on the night, but we’ve planned our way round that one this time.

“Old Deer Park is never an easy place to win, but we sneaked it down there last year and we are going down to win.

“The lads know what they have got to do to beat London Welsh and to win away from home. We’re fully aware that we have to get into them from the start.”

Maynard has been forced to make changes to the side that started last week’s game against league leaders Bristol, with outstanding No.8 Alex Shaw unavailable and winger Kurt Johnson nursing a slight knee injury and left out as a precaution.

Aaron Carpenter returns to No.8 with Henno Venter back at blindside flanker, and Simon Frewin replaces Johnson. Prop Scott Roberts and scrum-half Mike Walls start in straight exchanges with Jamie Hall and Ollie Frost, who both go on to the bench.

Maynard said: “Alex is away in Italy on a personal matter and we have a few of our loan boys unavailable this week. We’ll get up to strength in the next couple of weeks.

“We all recognise the importance of getting a few wins under our belt before the play-offs and that’s what we are focusing on.”

Kick-off is 2pm.

Coventry: Plantey; Frewin, MacKenzie, C Lewis, J Lewis; Apikotoa, Walls; Maddocks, McMillan, Roberts, Brenton, Herrington, Venter, Bignell, Carpenter. Reps: Russell, Hayes, Frost, Hall, Dwyer, Dechartres, Pons or Askew.

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