Coventry 23 Blackheath 36 by John Wilkinson.

There was more than a glimmer of another successful recovery as Cov, trailing 29-13, finally got their running game together and pulled back to within bonus-point range with two unconverted tries.

But when a cool head was needed in the dying minutes, Cov attempted to run their way out of trouble from their own line and gifted the visitors another try to come away empty handed.

A harsh lesson, but Cov could only look at themselves for being in the position they were and particularly at the first half hour or so when little went right.

Cov had the edge in the scrum and largely bossed the rucks, but the telling difference between the two sides was in the execution. Cov simply made too many errors and gave the ball away too often, while Blackheath – whose first league win on Coventry soil lifted them to fourth place in the table – were sharper going forward and had the pace to exploit the openings they created.

Three times in the first 21 minutes Cov got the ball out to Heath Stevens – who, a centre, has done an outstanding job this season in a different role and never gives less than 100 per cent – in space on the left wing, but on each one he didn’t have the extra yard of pace needed to finish things off.

And the difference was cruelly emphasised when Blackheath’s speed set up winger James Stephenson for their third try of the half and again after the break when they cut loose from their own 22 and in the blink of an eye tore through the cover for centre Richard Windsor to score their bonus-point try.

Frustrating indeed when, for one reason or another, Cov have been without the services of the two wingers who scored over 30 tries last season for pretty much all of the campaign.

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