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The Difference


By LI Bohemian
October 4 2018

Coventry Rugby Club are my closest pro Rugby team, geographically, it is easy to get to by train and a short walk from the station.  I arrived at the ground just before kick off, as I had left it until the last possible train to get there. 

The game started with some attack from Irish trying to dominate play, but in all honesty Irish never got going all afternoon, never dominating any aspect of the game, Coventry played a large part in this. 

Coventry were just as attack-minded and held their defensive lines well, now, I  can hear the Cov faithful saying "deserved to win", "should have won" and "small margins between an ex-premiership side and English Championship newbies." The fact is all teams are in a league because they deserve to be there, with absolutely no exceptions. 

The game itself was a hard fought close contest with the lead changing on six occasions. The Cov scrum was the dominant for most the game, their accuracy at the line-out was better too. 

Irish played a possession-based game going through phases, some players are naturally better at this than others looking to make five yards into seven yards, a good example was Josh McNally. While others are going over as soon as they are touched, this type of rugby could have something to do with playing to your strengths, the Irish backs are relatively new to each other and one wing is a centre and the other is the only viable winger available. 

Coventry play a varied type of game with a more expansive slant, this requires a full skill set for all players and up until the substitions it worked well for them. Irish had slightly more in the tank later in the contest. Even though Coventry put positional pressure on Irish towards the end of the match, they made crucial errors at the final hurdle, a scenario that's familiar to every Irish fan when in the premiership. 

This game reminded me of the Richmond game two years ago, when both teams were in the same predicament, the outcome and sentiments were identical, I think the reason for this is belief, just to have a little bit of belief, that you are better, despite not actually not being better, some call it confidence or arrogance. The one player who typified this on the field was Myler, he knew what to do, has the mind-set required and ultimately was the difference. The final score was 17-21, the home team's crowd were on the whole a good vocal following, the game itself was a good advert for rugby in this league, the facilities and ground are the best in the this league, that I have visited so far as an away supporter.

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The Difference
Discussion started by The Craic www.londonirish.org , 04/10/2018 16:26
The Craic www.londonirish.org
04/10/2018 16:26
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