Coventry Bears

Carvell Coventry Bears started the season with a win at Derby on Saturday.
The Bears won the game comfortably in a game that was marred in the second half by a string of penalties against the Bears.
The Bears took an early lead when Bears skipper and half back Alex Brown powered over near the posts. On 5 minutes the Coventry team extended their lead when centre Chris Brown went in on the wing. A further try on10 minutes by hooker Matty Allsopp gave the Bears a platform to sew the game up. Ben Powis playing his first game for the Bears for 8 years scored a try on the left shrugging off defenders to power over the line.
Coach Ty Watson then scored in the other corner doing well to keep in the field of play.
With the Bears leading 28-0 Derby finally troubled the scorer only for debutant Matt Cooper coming off the interchange bench to break through the middle and score under the posts. Just before the break another newcomer the England Lionheart full back Richard Whitehouse jinked through to take the halftime score to
Derby City 6 Carvell Coventry Bears 40.
The second half was marred for the Coventry outfit by a string of penalties against them. It seemed that everytime they went into a tackle they were penalised.
Coach Ty Watson was sent to the sin bin for holding his opponent down, despite his protest that in fact he was being held. With their indiscipline letting them down they allowed Derby to score two more tries. When the Bears did get hold of the football they suffered from an ability to keep hold of it. The only bright spot of the second stanza was a further try by new boy Matt Cooper who again carved through the City defence to score under the sticks.
Bizarrely with the home team trailing by 30 points they opted to secure 1 point from a drop goal when attacking the Bears defensive line.
Final Score
Derby City 17 Carvell Coventry Bears 44
Coventry Team
RICH WHITEHOUSE, BEN POWIS, NEIL HANNA, CHRIS BROWN, TOM SHAW,GRAHAM HEALEY, ALEX BROWN ©, ALAN ROBINSON, MATT ALLSOPP, TIM FARNDEN, LEE ASHFORD,
AARON JARVIS,TY WATSON, TANAKA CHAMUNOKARA, MATT COOPER,TIM STEVENS,
PETER PARKER, DAVE HARTLEY, PHIL MALLOY, TERENCE KURAVEGA
Point scorers.
Tries
Matt Cooper (2) A. Brown, C Brown, M. Allsopp, B. Powis, T. Watson, R. Whitehouse
Conversions G. Healey (6)