By John Wilkinson
October 31 2008

CROWD-PLEASER Kurt Johnson is back on the wing for Coventry's game against Newbury at the Butts Park Arena tomorrow. The Barbados international - who needs four more tries to reach 100 in the league for Cov - will be making his first appearance of the season after picking up a knee injury in the final warm-up game against Cardiff, and had 40 minutes of preparatory action guesting for Stourbridge 2nds against Loughborough Students on Monday night.

"Kurt played the whole second half," said rugby director Phil Maynard, who also hopes to secure midweek run-outs at his former club for other returning players in the next few weeks.

"He looked a bit rusty, but he tackled and got stuck in, and he will be all the better for having a run under his belt."

Skipper Henno Venter returns at flanker as the only other change to the starting line-up from last week's game against bottom team Manchester which Cov won 29-18 to end a run of three defeats.

Venter comes off the bench to replace Rob Bell, who has been ruled out for three weeks with concussion, while Worcester Academy lock Dave Lyons is named in the replacements after signing a loan deal to stay at Cov for the rest of the season.

Cov will be expected to add another victory against a Newbury side lying 14th in the National Division One table with just two wins from their nine games, but Maynard has made his squad fully aware of the true extent of the task facing them.

"It's a bit like last week's game, but not to be derogatory to Manchester, Newbury are Manchester plus 50 per cent," he said.

"We've looked at their games from the last few weeks, and at one stage against Nottingham they put 27 phases and seven and a half minutes of keep-ball together.

"That must be some kind of a record for a team in this division and if the lads needed a reminder of what they will be up against, that's it.

"We've worked on continuing our line-out improvement, decreasing the error count and on making sure we develop a bit more patience in our game.

"I wasn't happy with how we defended a bit last week, and we will need to be on the top of our game.

"Last week's win brought back a bit of belief - this is going to be another up and down season, but we all know that if we string our game together and tactically play sensibly, we'll be all right."

Coventry: Russell; Johnson, Dixon, Sanders, Winter; Dorrian, Jones; Ovens, Whitehead, Dugard, Herrington, Burgess, Venter, Miller, McGlone. R

Reps: Hayes, Walls, Sanderson, Pearl, Walton, Lyons, Pons.

Newbury: M Williams; Nutt, Hylton, Burns, Henderson; G Griffiths, Gasson; Green, Clark, Fidler, Ascroft-Leigh, A Griffiths, Lee, Fox, Witcomb.

Reps: Ridgers, Sweeney, Kessell, G Williams, Noonan, McGregor, Burgess.

Kurt back to boost Coventry

Discussion started by Unofficial Coventry Rugby (IP Logged), 31/10/2008 14:39

Unofficial Coventry Rugby
31/10/2008 14:39

Kurt back to boost Coventry

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RJC
31/10/2008 16:46

That is great news.
GOOG LUCK KURT

COME ON COVVVVVVVVVVV

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