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Coventry agree to three extensions, including Patrick Pellegrini deal

Tonga's Patrick Pellegrini is staying on at Coventry (Photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images)

Championship high-flyers Coventry have celebrated the end of another promising season by confirming that Tonga out-half Patrick Pellegrini, former England back-rower Matt Kvesic and engine room talisman James Tyas have all signed contract extensions for 2024/25.

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Alex Rae’s side finished third last season, 11 points behind champions Jersey, and they are currently placed second, four points behind leaders Ealing.

However, with their 20-game campaign over, they are likely to lose hold of the runners-up spot as third-place Cornish Pirates still have one game remaining.

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Patrick Pellegrini on his incredible RWC 2023 try vs the Springboks

The Coventry and Tonga fly-half talks about the brilliant try he scored against the World Champions in France

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Patrick Pellegrini on his incredible RWC 2023 try vs the Springboks

The Coventry and Tonga fly-half talks about the brilliant try he scored against the World Champions in France

Consecutive third-place finishes would still be quite an achievement, though, teeing Coventry up for what they hope can be a title-winning season next term.

A statement on their contract extensions read: “Coventry have received a major boost with the confirmation that Tongan World Cup star Pat Pellegrini plus former England flanker Matt Kvesic and experienced lock James Tyas will again be part of their squad next season.

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“Back-to-back top-three finishes have thrust Cov into the spotlight as title contenders for 2024/25, and a lot of this progress has been down to a group of players that really buy into the ethos created by head coach Alex Rae plus his coaching and support team.

“Pellegrini’s 2023/24 Coventry campaign began slightly late due to his call-up by Tonga for a Rugby World Cup campaign in which he scored a memorable try against double world champions South Africa.

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“Since returning to Butts Park Arena, the fly-half has continued to produce the form that earned him international honours, finishing the Championship campaign as the league’s top points scorer.

“He has also created and finished any number of thrilling tries with the trademark sidestep and explosive pace that makes him such a favourite with the Butts Park faithful.

“Kvesic joined the blue-and-whites a year ago and has since gone on to be one of the Championship’s most consistent performers.

“Operating in all three back row positions, the 32-year-old has started 22 of his club’s 25 competitive games this season. In addition to his breakdown skills and powerful ball-carrying, Kvesic has brought invaluable experience to Rae’s young squad.

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“Experienced second row forward Tyas, has signed a new contract that extends his stay at the Butts Park Arena into a fourth year. A measure of Tyas’ importance is that he has started 22 games this season. Indeed, all 61 of his Coventry appearances to date have been as part of the run-on line-up – a very rare feat indeed.

“The details of Tyas’ on-field contribution only tell half the tale, however, since he is also in charge of the club’s analysis team via his company Pro View and is responsible for running Cov’s lineout.”

Coach Rae said: “It’s great to have Pat on board again. There are not many fly-halves who play the way he does. He has played a huge part in the way we want to attack and entertain people. His work ethic and desire to become even better are really impressive and on top of all that he cares deeply and is a fantastic person.

“We also feel very lucky to have a player and person of Matt’s calibre. The way he conducts himself day to day is a great example to our younger players of what a true professional looks like and his performances have been really consistent this season.

“Since James arrived, he has been one of the most consistent performers who every week gives everything he’s got and sets a brilliant example. He is obsessed with getting better every day and is exactly the kind of person we want to be working with and is very much someone for younger players to look up to.”

Tyas added: “I’m already really excited about the future. We have made progress every year and after talking to Alex and Nick (Johnston) their plans for next year are something I really want to be involved with.

“Working with our coaching group has taken my game to another level – I feel challenged and pushed by them to keep improving. I believe I have a few more good years in me and want to spend them seeing just how far we can go as a club.”

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J
JW 1 hour ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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