London Skolars suffer pre-season loss to Coventry Bears

Coventry opened the scoring after Reece Rance took advantage of a Skolars’ error from a high kick.

They scored a second after Dan Coates and Matt Welham combined in a break to put Skolars onto the backfoot, before moving the ball to the right.

With an overlap Charles Hammond had go for an intercept to stop a try, but he couldn’t gather the ball clealy and Jack Dawson picked up the loose ball to score.

Skolars had to defend again after they gave away a penalty for offside at the kick-off and they went further behind when. Kieran Sherratt scored the Bears’ third try. Skolars got back into the game with two tries late in the first half.

First Mike Greenhalgh raced onto a Neil Thorman kick that bounced awkwardly for the defence. Four minutes later Omari Caro intercepted a pass ten metres from his own line before racing downfield leaving Skolars 10-18 behind at half-time.

Coventry extended their lead.when Haydn Freeman took a Dan Coates kick a kick to the left. However, a Coventry error in their own half allowed Skolars to attack and Lamont Bryan powered over from two metres out.

A Jacob Thomas break was continued by Iliess Macani to set up an attacking position for the home side, Phil Lyon following up his grubber kick to score with Neil Thorman converting to level the scores.

Skolars were the strongest team at that point but a sidestep by Jordan Paga found enough of gap in the defence to touchdown with Coates adding his fourth conversion of the afternoon.

That gave Coventry a six point lead and Skolars couldn’t find a way through the defence in the final stages.

Skolars’ first game of the League 1 season takes place at New River Stadium on Saturday in a game being played behind closed doors.

The opposition are North Wales Crusaders, who were also the opposition in Skolars’ last league game at the start of March.