By Paul Smith
In the week after Coventry Rugby pulled off a landmark 28-14 win over English champions Saracens the scale of the club’s achievement is still reverberating around the city.
Cov outscored their Premiership Rugby Cup rivals by four tries to two to join Ealing as the only second-tier clubs to claim opening round wins over top-flight opposition.
On a day when the sun shone and the launch of the Rugby World Cup drew wider public awareness to the sport, Cov’s brilliant display was witnessed by over 4,000 spectators – the club’s biggest home crowd since Harlequins visited the Butts Park Arena in 2005/06 season.
Social media has since been full of praise for Alex Rae’s team and Cov’s normally taciturn head coach confessed that the memories of the occasion are still bringing a smile to his face.
“It was a brilliant day on Saturday for the club as a whole,” he said.
“The atmosphere and crowd were incredible and to pack the ground with huge numbers of fans was just amazing. We now need to build on that and make sure that we keep improving every time we play.”
Coventry gave competitive debuts to seven players and one of the newcomers, former Jersey wing Ryan Hutler, joined hooker Suva Ma’asi, man-of-the-match Will Wand and recently-capped Tonga fly half Pat Pellegrini in getting across the Sarries’ try-line.
Rae was delighted by his team’s performance levels across the board and said they must now quickly get their feet back on the ground and produce a similarly impressive display when they visit Harlequins at the Stoop in next Saturday’s second round of cup action.
“The effort from the lads was superb,” he said. “We really committed and the level of detail, our physicality and the energy we brought to our game on a really hot day was brilliant.
“Saracens brought a really strong side and finished with plenty of players with Premiership experience and some internationals on the field, so it wasn’t as if we beat an academy team.
“We now need to make sure that performance isn’t a one-off. Harlequins this Saturday will be a really tough challenge but is one we’re very much looking forward to. There’s no point beating Saracens at home if we can’t then go to the Stoop and back it up.”
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