Match win bonuses of £200 a man are being offered to Coventry rugby club’s first team players to help drive the club to the top of the Second Division.

Club chairman Keith Fairbrother annoyed at newspaper features writing off Coventry’s title chasing chances said:

"If other clubs think we are going to be a soft touch they are making a big mistake.

"I noticed that the people being quoted as saying that were all from clubs who were beaten by us last season."

Fairbrother believes his club is ready to take off again, back to the glory days when they were among the top four in English rugby.

He says:

"We are making great progress towards our move to the new stadium, but meanwhile our Coundon Road ground is looking better than for the last ten years. It gleams like a new pin.

"We are finalising our plans for the new stadium in The Butts and we expect to have planning permission before Christmas. We shall start building in February next year and it will be ready to kick off next season in our new home.

"We shall then have a 9,000 all seat stadium, a 20,000 sq ft clubhouse and conference centre and a seven day a week sports bar. They will be tremendous facilities and allied to the new SkyDome one hundred yards away, Coventry will have unrivalled sports facilities in the city centre."

Fairbrother, meanwhile, is exhorting his players to push through the comfort zone and ‘look over the edge’.

"The recent World Athletics Championships showed what the human body can achieve. So many of those athletes achieved personal bests when it mattered.

"There is a tremendous team spirit in the club but every sportsman knows that it is too easy to play within yourself. To achieve anything you have to look over the edge. I want them to be pro-active, aggressive and mentally tough.

"It is a big advantage to play at home and Coundon Road is a fortress but mental toughness can improve our away form by fifty per cent and if that happens we will be challenging for the title. To help that to happen we are operating a bonus system for the players.

"It will be self-perpetuating. Better performances will bring in bigger crowds which will generate more cash."