"As long as we keep winning our home games we will be OK, and some away wins will come along as well," said rugby director Phil Maynard. "We have just got to make sure it is sooner rather than later.

"We realise that, as a team, we haven't always had a lot of success at Sedgley Park and we lost there last year from an initially promising position.

"It's down to the work ethic and our ability to stick to our guns from start to finish."

After a scrappy first half where they led 11-5, Cov opened out impressively in the second half of last week's game against Esher and scored more four tries to register a final 33-8 scoreline.

"I was happy enough with that performance, but we are still working very hard to resolve a few technical issues," added Maynard.

"We've talked about resolve this week, retaining the ball for longer periods and looking to improve areas of the set piece such as tidying up the line-out."

Flanker Darren Clayton comes off the bench as the only change to the starting line-up following a hip injury to Jamie Miller, who will be given a fitness test today and could yet claim a place in the squad.

Scrum-half Nathan Jones is still a week away from full fitness after an ankle injury and prop Dai Maddocks is also ruled out again by a back problem.

Ricky Whitehall continues at loose head after stepping in for his first outing of the season against Esher and giving an excellent account as the pack dominated the scrums as well as providing the scoring pass for Cov's third try, touched down by Lee Parry.

"Ricky stepped up to the plate and had a very good game," said Maynard. "I was pleased for him, and Rob Dugard also had another good game at tight head - he keeps at it for the full 80 minutes."

Sedgley Park won their opening two games against Manchester and Rotherham, but have since suffered two defeats to sit a place behind Cov in the table in tenth.

They could be without influential captain and fly-half Phil Jones, who faces a late fitness test after taking a knock at Nottingham on Sunday, but first-choice props Petrus Du Plessis and Phil Gazzola both return.

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