There were more fireworks off the pitch than on it for Nottingham as they started November and their Premiership Rugby Cup campaign with a home defeat to a strong Coventry outfit. The Championship leaders made only four changes to their starting lineup from their last league outing versus Nottingham’s ten.
It was the home side who were on the scoreboard first however, as, despite a couple of wayward touch-finders in the opening period of the match, Matt Arden made no mistake on 13 minutes with a penalty from a central position 18 metres out after Coventry had pushed early at a scrum.
The next ten minutes saw a couple of opportunities for both sides. Full-back Steff Davies set up an attack for the visitors with a tackle-evading run that they ultimately couldn’t capitalise on. Then Davies turned defender as he did well to scramble the ball away from practically under his own posts following a line break and chip forward from Sam Mercer.
Coventry lit the blue touch paper with two tries in five minutes just over midway through the half. Playing with advantage, Alex Rae’s men looked like they were going backwards in midfield but they worked it out wide left and Charlie Robson acrobatically twisted to get the ball down in the corner. The conversion from Liam Richman hit the post.
Moments later Cov had a box kick charged down in their own red zone but they rather fortuitously managed to turn the ensuing clearance into a 50:22. Nottingham compounded the issue by committing a penalty at the lineout, allowing their opponents to set up again deeper into Archers’ territory and run a nice set move to release Matt Johnson to score between the posts. Richman added the extras.
The hosts had a couple of attacking mauls but they couldn’t really get any momentum and Coventry were able to see it out to half time with a 12-3 lead.
Nottingham were fastest out of the blocks after the break, as Jacob Wright rocketed down the right hand touch line, his pass inside found Mercer who was stopped just short of the try line.
After a couple more quick breaks by The Archers, Coventry replacement David Opoku was sent to the bin for cynically holding up play at a ruck on his own 22. Nottingham went to the right hand corner from the penalty then worked it across the field for Ryan Olowofela to score having been put in by an Arden grubber.
Nottingham didn’t continue to press home their man advantage though, immediately hitting the self-destruct button as, in attempting to go through the hands inside their own 22, they allowed Ryan Hutler to intercept and he was able to cross unopposed.
On 57 minutes, with Coventry back to full strength, it was The Archers turn to go down to 14, this time permanently, as Aman Johal, having been on the field for ten minutes on debut, was shown a red card following a head-on-head collision with Hutler. Jordon Poole burrowed over the line to score from the ensuing penalty.
Just over ten minutes later, with numbers now evened up with Coventry’s Josh Barton in the bin, Jai Johal, on for Arden, put in a grubber that looked like 50-cap man Jack Stapley would run onto but it hit the post and rebounded back into the field of play. Nottingham had a penalty advantage though, so got the ball back and were able to shift it to Jay Ecclesfield to plunder a try.
Quite a few aerial balls had been allowed to hit the ground all night and with five minutes remaining it was bobbing around following a kick yet again, Coventry were able to work it wide left to David Opoku who evaded a number of tackles to score in the left hand corner.
With time running out Opoku again broke free down the left, drew in the last defender and passed inside to Will Lane to put the gloss on the Coventry win as they ran out victors by 34-15.
Co-captain Jack Stapley said after the game “A few boys were getting their first start for the season, me included. There’s a few things that we need to fix for ourselves but nothing that can’t be rectified on Monday.
“It’s a special night, being able to co-captain with TJ is fantastic and, to be able to represent this club 50 times is a really big achievement, so I’m really proud of that. It’s good to get it eventually done as I was getting stick from the boys with my injury delaying it. But it was good to get back out there and hopefully I’ll be able to rip into it for the rest of the season.”