Dawson takes positives after defeat at Coventry

Dawson felt his side’s set-piece worked better than it had in recent weeks, Matt McLean returned from 15 months out injured and new prop Richard Palframan, who has joined on loan from London Irish, made his debut.

Dawson said: “Surpisingly, considering the result, I was quite pleased with aspects of the performance. The set-piece worked much better, our new prop Richard did really well and it was great to have Matt back.

“Richard hadn’t played in a few weeks, so ran out of steam a bit and that was at the same time Dan Sargent got injured, so we had to change both our props.

“Mickey Pointing came on out of position at tight head and we had a player sinbinned around the same time and that was then they took a stranglehold on the game and scored three or four tries in the final 20 minutes.

“But, all in all, we’ll take a lot of positives from the game.”

Raiders played with the strong wind behind them in the first half but Coventry took the lead after only five minutes. Scott Morgan was driven over, following a line-out, and Cliffie Hodgson converted.

Sam Pailor touched down Coventry’s second try to open up a 12-0 lead, before Ben Loosmore crossed for a well-worked try for Raiders and Joe Govett added the extras.

The hosts responded, though, and Pierre Ferre went over for an unconverted try to make the half-time score 19-7.

Coventry secured the four-try bonus point seven minutes into the second half when Jacques Le Roux touched down and Hodgson again converted.

Raiders almost got a try back on 59 minutes but Matt Lasis was denied by a superb tackle by Ruan Van Heerden.

Raiders had Jon Whittall sinbinned and Coventry then touched down three more tries in the final ten minutes through Le Roux, Callum McBurnie and Pailor.

The game on Saturday was not one that is going to define Raiders’ season, though.

They remained fifth from bottom with the defeat and now have a week off before a run of games against teams in and around them in the table, beginning with a visit from bottom-of-the-table Hull Ionians on March 1.

By that game, Raiders could almost be full strength. Liam Perkins will be back from his ban, Scott Barlow, Charlie McGowan, Finlay Coxon-Smith and Ben Dudley could all return from injury, while top try scorer Alex Nielsen, who has not played since December owing to work unavailability, is also set to return.

Nielsen is due to play for Raiders in a friendly away to The Army on Monday and his return will be a big boost for the club.

Worthing also hope to have England under-20 player James Chisholm back once the Six Nations is over.

Dawson said: “Hopefully, we’ll be close to full strength by the time of the Hull game and we’ll have a totally different look as a team.

“We’ve got seven cup finals to go and we’ve got to treat every game in that way.

“Some of the teams below us have had matches postponed so now have games in hand to play against teams with nothing to play for, so we have to take it for granted that they are going to win those games.

“We’re playing all the teams around the bottom of the league, so it could take four or maybe five wins from the seven games to keep us up. But we’ll go into the games confident.”

RAIDERS: Sargent, Miles, Palframan, Gaynor, Sewell, Heaver, Hewick, Smith, Govett, Leeming, Lasis, K.Richards, O.Richards, Loosmore, Maslen. Subs: Pointing, Cleveland, Redmayne, Whittall, McLean.