Football Sports

2010 has already been very busy for the Coventry Jets Senior Flag team. Quite apart from their continuing recruitment drive, they travelled down to Bristol last month for a friendly with Filton College Pride and more recently entertained the Coventry…

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2010 has already been very busy for the Coventry Jets Senior Flag team. Quite apart from their continuing recruitment drive, they travelled down to Bristol last month for a friendly with Filton College Pride and more recently entertained the Coventry University Jets. The trip to Bristol was not only about playing, Head Coach Andrew Gambrill was there to teach the newly formed Pride rules and techniques of UK flag football. Once the training session had finished it was time for Gambrill to take the field with his Senior squad. Both sides looked sharp offensively, Coventry, who unveiled their new offensive playbook, also found plenty of game time for their new personnel.

The Jets have two new quarterbacks to join Marcus Gambrill on the roster this year. Third year utility player Rob Coleman was very pleased with his first competitive outing under centre “offensively we settled down quite quickly, scoring on our first two drives which was pleasing”. Coleman delivered touchdown passes to Matt Consadine and Ant Martin, beating double coverage for the latter. “I’m very pleased with the effort the whole team put in today” continued Coleman whose sentiments were echoed by coach Gambrill “every player on the Jets squad is fully committed to the team this year and we hope to make it back to the playoffs this season. We were crippled by injuries last year but when we’re at full strength we are a very dangerous team”.

Consadine was delighted with his score “I don’t get to see many receptions in the end zone, so to have the ball thrown towards me was a surprise. With the chance to go in the record books as the first touchdown scorer against the Filton Pride up for grabs I wasn’t going to drop this one”. Player of the Year, Shadrach McCook, was once again on top form but not even his two touchdown returns could prevent the Pride from winning their flag debut by a score of 36-26. Jets kitted cornerback Adam Grindrod, who missed the entire 2009 season, made his debut for the flag team as he finds his way back to full fitness.

Solidifying his reputation as the Jet’s go to guy in the redzone, Consadine opened the sides scoring for the second successive time as the Jets beat Coventry University’s newly formed side. Luke Gambrill made a welcome return from injury and had several receptions but, being short of match fitness, was not able to hit full stride as the Jets ran mounted a memorable comeback to run out 38-29 victors.
Grindrod got his name on the stat sheet with an interception to halt a strong drive from the University side, finishing the job by hauling in a McCook pass in the endzone. However, the same defensive breakdown’s that plagued Coach Gambrill’s charges in Filton saw the University team end the half with a 23-12 lead over the heavily favoured flag team.

Bouncing back after the break the flag squad opened the second half with interceptions on each of their first 3 defensive series. Ant Martin, Sean Rice and MVP Adam Grindrod all took their picks to the endzone. Rice, one of Coventry’s newest recruits acknowledged that the interceptions were largely down to the constant pressure applied to the opposing quarterback by Lisa Eaton and Tikisha McCook who had three sacks between them to add to their already impressive preseason tally.
With only a few minutes left on the clock the flag team’s defence was breached again for a long range touchdown. Coach Gambrill made a big play on the conversion to stop the University side levelling the scores. McCook then iced the game by taking a straightforward pitch right and zig-zaging the length of the field with the games final play to make the result look a little more comfortable.

Coach Gambrill was pleased with his sides fighting spirit “when a team comes back like that, it can draw on that experience in future games. Hopefully we won’t get into a hole like that again, but it has done wonders for our self belief. We’re not overly worried about the defensive errors, as we know why they happened and how to fix them. However, the lack of extra point conversions is something we need to look at”. Coventry only managed to convert two of their six extra point attempts for Gambrill’s new look offence.

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