Coventry 43 Moseley  16 - October 13th 2007

MOSELEY: M Williams; Bressington, James (Macdonald, 15), Adams, Foster; Jones, Taylor; Buxton (N Williams, 49), Caves, Forster (Bayliss, 60), Stott, Atkinson (Lightowler, 60), Tuohy (Uzoigwe, 80), Bignell, Evans. Replacements: McMillan, Ireland

Referee: Mr D Newitt (RFU).

SCORERS: Coventry – tries: Gillanders (2), Russell, Johnson, Sanders, Venter; conversions: Russell (5); penalty: Russell.

Moseley – try: Bressington; conversion: Jones; penalties: Jones (3).
 
MOSE HIT FOR SIX BY RIVALS

Sunday Mercury

COVENTRY 43 MOSELEY 16 From ANDY WALKER at the Butts Park Arena MOSELEY were left feeling blue for the second week running after being hit for six by Coventry. Last weekend it was the Newbury Blues, this weekend it was the turn of the blue of Mose's long-standing West Midlands rivals to pile on the misery. Yesterday's match-up at the Butts Park Arena bucked the trend of last season's close-knit affairs as the rampant hosts ran in six tries, four in the second half, to pick up only their second victory of the season.

Wrapping The visitors from Birmingham had raced into a 10-0 lead with just six minutes on the clock but Cov soon found their rhythm and never looked in any doubt of wrapping up a much-needed win. The day was particularly memorable for winger Kurt Johnson who chalked up his 100th try for Coventry, while Leicester Academy loanee Gregor Gillanders bagged a brace of scores. And after seeing off the visitors from up the A45, Barbados international Johnson hopes that this result triggers a winning spree for Coventry. "It was good for me to get the monkey of my back to get my 100 but also for us to get the win that our performances have thus far deserved this season," said Johnson. "Landmarks are important to me because that is what drives you on as a player and I'm looking forward to the next one because now I want to get 100 league tries for Coventry. I'm on 93 now so hopefully that is something else that I will be able to do this season. "Moseley gave us a challenge we were 10-0 down and if they had scored again it would have been a very different story. Fortunately we managed to climb our way back into the game and by playing fast rugby we were managing to get a breakthrough. "We've got a massive task ahead of us going down to Plymouth. Last time we won against Rotherham we had a poor week at training and lost, we don't intend to repeat the same feat and hopefully go down to Plymouth and get another win." Hooker Adam Caves was at a loss to say where Moseley went wrong and he is now bracing himself for a video nasty next week. "I'm just disappointed, I don't know what happened," said Caves. "First half I thought we were in it, second half we died off a little bit.

"We'll now have a look on Tuesday at the video and see what that brings up, we've got a lot to work on next week. I thought our forwards played quite well as a whole and the backs played quite well but we just didn't function as a team.

"I think Coventry came out of the second half with a their tails up. They kept hold of it and kept plugging away at us.

Simple Just keeping the ball in hand, simple things, didn't happen for us today – and you can't play much without the ball."

Moseley were still in with a chance after the interval after Matt Jones' penalty on the half-time whistle cut the deficit to 15-13.

However the red and black's second-half display was a far cry from the away side's opening period where they stormed into a comfortable looking lead.

With just two minutes gone fly-half Jones tucked away an awkward looking penalty from the left flank in off the post.

Then, four minutes later, Johnson was at fault as Moseley bagged what turned out to be their only try of the match.

The Coventry winger failed to deal with a high ball and Jones fed Nathan Bressington who easily breezed past the tacklers to touch down leaving the creator to convert.

But Cov struck back moments later when second row Gillanders barged over from a move that was started by fellow Leicester Academy player Jack Cobden.

And they were soon in front when a series of pressure on the Moseley line paid off for Ben Russell who dived over in the right corner and tucked away the conversion. The full-back then slotted home his only penalty of the day as the first half finished in favour of the visitors.

If Moseley were ever going to win this game they had to go for it right away in the second half but it was Coventry who crossed the white line six minutes in.

Gillanders set up Johnson to dive under the posts for his landmark try, a converted one as well.

The visitors scored for the final time in the 55th minute via a third Jones penalty.

From then it was all about the blue and white as centre Donovan Sanders and flanker Henno Venter added tries.

Gillanders completed the rout and his brace two minutes into injury time to give Coventry six appeal.

Moseley's encouraging start maybe starting to fade but belatedly Coventry look as though they are just beginning.

Birmingham Post Report