By John Wilkinson, Coventry Telegraph.
October 11 2013

Coventry have reacted to their first defeat of the season at Blaydon by making six changes to the starting line-up for tomorrow’s National League One home game against Old Albanian.

One change is enforced, with centre James Otutaha ruled out by a mouth injury and replaced by the returning Barry Davies, but the others are selection decisions with skipper Rob Nash among those paying the price for last week’s 21-16 reversal.

Nash loses his place to Liam Munro, who has been recalled from a loan spell at Broadstreet, while hooker Chris Locke is back from injury, head coach Scott Morgan has his second outing of the season at lock, and Lewis Barker is recalled at scrum-half to form a new partnership with fly-half Matt Jones, who made his debut off the bench at Blaydon.

“Scott drilled right down into the reasons for the defeat and as a group we know we can’t make as many mistakes as we did in this division and expect to win games,” said rugby director Phil Maynard.

“It was a setback but we are working to put it right and there is a lot more rugby to be played in this league.

“Liam has been playing well at Broadstreet and is back in full training after work commitments, he was flying at training on Tuesday so we are giving Rob a rest this week. Matt is also fully fit now and had a good 20 minutes at Blaydon, so he warrants a start.”

Old Albanian have won only one of their five games to date but did the double over Cov last season – their first in the division after promotion – including a 39-34 win at the Butts Park Arena.

“They play with a lot of attacking verve and it will be another test for us,” said Maynard. “But if we any aspirations to a top-five finish, we have to win these games at home.

“We are a much better team than we showed last week, our training this week had an edge to it and was the most focused so far, and hopefully we can put in a performance we can all be proud of.”

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Skipper loses place out as Cov aim to strike back...

Discussion started by Unofficial Coventry Rugby (IP Logged), 11/10/2013 12:57

Unofficial Coventry Rugby
11/10/2013 12:57

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