Coventry Bears 20 Warrington Wizards 48
Champions Warrington Wizards came right back into form with an emphatic victory at the Butts Park Arena. The Bears were looking to bounce back after last weeks defeat at Huddersfield, but it wasn’t to be.
Once again a healthy crowd turned out to watch the Bears and unfortunately they witnessed the Bears first home defeat of the season.
Both defences were on top in the opening minutes, as the attacks looked to forge an opening. The Bears defence was caught napping when a speculative kick down field allowed Warrington to score under the posts after 16 minutes.
3 minutes later the Bears put themselves back into the hunt when Coventry’s prolific point scoring loose forward Simon Perry pulled a try back with a try from short distance. Warrington were often guilty of some indiscipline and despite being down to 12 men they scored again just before the interval. With both tries being converted the Wizards led by 12 points to 4 at the break.
The home side were again caught short and in a blistering 20 minute period they leaked 5 tries as the Warrington attack found a route through the middle of the park. With the game over as a spectacle the Bears gave the home fans something to cheer about as Simon Perry again found a good line through the defence. When Bears returning back rower Matt Cooper went in under the posts the score line looked as though it might be more respectable.
The fight back was short lived however as again the Wizards hit back with two tries of their own.
It was the Coventry outfit that was to have the last word however when the Bears two new Australian recruits combined to score, centre Stephen Coleman took a short kick off and raced through to pounce on the ball, it was then shipped out to Chad Grant who went in on the right and at least gave the home team a positive with which they can build on.
Coventry Head Coach Alan Robinson was definitely unimpressed.
“Too many players went missing today, we were tired looking in defence. At this level players have got to realise that if we don’t make the effort in defence we will be exposed and that’s what happened this afternoon. Next week we have a massive local derby against the Nottingham Outlaws its a must win for us and I will be looking for the players to improve. We hope to have a couple ofplayers returning and I will have no qualms about shaking up the line up. We are starting to get a good following and our spectators deserve more than a performance like today”
Coventry Team
Tom Tsang, Rob Nichols, Steve Coleman, Chad Grant, Andy McGrory, Dan Poulton, Scott Clendenning Fenton, Mike Venn, Alex Brown , Rhydian Booth, Matt Cooper, Luke Watts, Si Perry, Rob Brown, Harry Kaufman, Dan Glover, Adam Barnett.
Coventry Scorers
Tries Simon Perry (2), Matt Cooper, Chad Grant
Cons Stephen Coleman (2)
Coventry Bears Ladies won 20-18 in a friendly at Oxford University.