Coventry Bears Rugby League Club won on the road today.
Coventry travelled to Caerphilly in Wales and came home with a 28-24 away victory against Valley Cougars, who like the Bears have stepped up into the National Division this year. With both teams having some mixed results it was important that the Bears finished the first half of the season in good form and aimed to consolodate there 3rd Spot in the National League.
The home side looked the freshest at the start and opened the scoring after 3 minutes following some sloppy play from the Bears. The Coventry team levelled the scoring when following a penalty 2nd row Rhidian Booth broke through and slipped the ball to top scoring loose forward Si Perry. On the half hour mark Perry added a second try which was converted by Australian stand off Stephen Coleman.
Just before the interval Coleman took a nasty knock to his ankle and was to play no further part in the proceedings.
Half time Valley Cougars 4 Coventry 10.
The second half started as had the first with the Welsh team in the ascendancy. With 25 minutes of the half gone the Bears were looking as though they might be heading for another away defeat as they trailed 20-10.
Centre Matt Cooper gave the Bears a way back with a try under the posts. Coventry prop Ken Dowding was causing all sorts of trouble to the home team with his storming runs. It was only fitting that he should score a try that brought the scores level at 20 apiece. A short kick off from the Cougars worked against them as Perry went in for his hat trick try taking his total to 19 for the season so far out of 9 games. The Cougars pulled a try back in the last couple of minutes to set the visitors hearts racing but the Bears had done enough to secure the points.
Bears Assistant Coach Mark Sloan commented:
“We were good today and showed alot of Character. We had a couple of key players missing through injury but you would not have known it. Chad Grant was man of the match but there were another 3 or 4 that could equally have been nominated. The really pleasing thing was that despite being 10 points in arrears in the second half we never let our heads go down and there is no doubt we deserved the win overall”
Final score Valley Cougars 24 Coventry Bears 28.
Coventry Team
Tim Leishman, Michael Ryan, Steve Coleman, Matt Cooper, Tanaka Chamunokara, Tom Tsang, Alex Brown, Michael Venn, Barry McGuffog, Rhidian Booth, Harry Kaufman, Chad Grant, Si Perry, Ken Dowding, Adam Barnett, Tom Watts, Tawanda Chipadze.
Coventry scorers
Tries
Perry (3) Cooper, Dowding.
Conversions
Grant (3) Coleman.
Man of the Match Chad Grant.
Coventry Bears now return to the Butts Park Arena for two home games in two weeks the first next week Saturday 2nd July against Hemel Hempstead Stags kick off 2.30pm then the following week they take on 2nd placed Dewsbury Celtic on Saturday 9th July also a 2.30pm kick off both are sure to be great games for the fans