Coventry face rivals Birmingham Moseley in first pre-season game
COVENTRY are only a week out from their first pre-season game against Birmingham Moseley and the pulse is starting to quicken.
The serious stuff is still a month away – when a Friday night trip to face London Scottish launches the Championship on September 20.
Saturday's meeting at Butts Park between two of the sport's oldest rivals is a good tester.
Head coach Alex Rae is looking forward to the game against National League One side Moseley.
It will give him a first opportunity to weigh up options as they look to get a good start to the campaign and put early pressure on Ealing in the title race.
“When you see people in training it's impossible not to start thinking about combinations,” Rae says.
“It is also difficult not to have one eye on the first league game with London Scottish and thinking ‘if I picked the team now who would be in it?'
But it is important to stay open-minded.”
Now in charge of his third pre-season, Rae has evolved his approach.
He adds: “A lot of clubs split their pre-season so there's heavy-duty fitness at the start then rugby gets introduced as the season gets closer.
We don't believe that's the best way of doing things.
To us it doesn't make sense to play games with a ball but train without one, so our training is based around rugby.”
During his playing career, Rae competed in the Premiership with Saracens and London Wasps.
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