Coventry 36 Tynedale 34 by John Wilkinson.

Coventry claimed their expected five-point win to make it six from six at the Butts Park Arena this season – but they made hard work of it.

From the way Cov carved through Tynedale’s cover to score two tries in the first 12 minutes and doubled the total by the half hour, it should have been a routine exercise.

But the home side were equally profligate at the back, allowing Tynedale to keep their noses in the game at 29-17 and, as Cov strayed away from the tactics that had been working so well, namely moving the ball wide at pace, the going got tougher.

Despite conceding two tries to Tynedale’s driving forwards before half-time, Cov elected to meet them head on after the break and generally came out second best, which resulted in a scoreless third quarter before a dazzling 70-metre run from scrum-half Greg Illingworth brought the visitors back to within a single score.

And, although Cov woke up sufficiently to add the cushion of a well-worked fifth try, Illingworth’s effort clearly gave Tynedale the self-belief to go for broke, which saw them score twice in the eight minutes of injury-time found from somewhere by referee Fergus Kirby to make the final scoreline uncomfortably close.

In the end, Tynedale outscored Cov 6-5 on tries and the deciding factor was the boot of Cliffie Hodgson, who kicked five from six, including a crucial penalty on the stroke of half-time, when Cov might have been tempted to go for more, against Gavin Beasley’s two from six.

As Cov’s rugby director Phil Maynard said: “We were OK with the ball in hand, but we were dreadful without it.

“We usually climb into teams like that and get stuck into them, but today we just didn’t seem interested when we didn’t have the ball.”

Hodgson opened the scoring for Cov with an eighth-minute try after a bulldozing run from deep by Mark Kohler.

The centre then converted for a 12-0 lead four minutes later when Matt Jones sent 
Will Hurrell bursting through a hole in the Tynedale defence.

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