Coventry Saracens have won praise from opponents Alcester despite suffering an English league record defeat last Saturday.

Coventry Saracens were crushed 194-3 in Midlands Six West (South East) but they were forced to take the field with only eight players because of chronic selection problems.

Their depleted side included three specialist front forwards and another who was capable of playing in the front row which meant that the game was completed without recourse to uncontested scrums and no league regulations were breached.

“We dropped three forwards out of the scrum to make it five against three in the scrums but all credit to Coventry Saracens for honouring the fixture,” said Alcester captain Scott Carmichael.

“A lot of clubs would have cried off, but they turned up and insisted that the game went ahead so they deserve a lot of credit for doing that.

“They have gone up in our estimation and we appreciated their efforts.”

Alcester ran in 32 tries to improve their promotion chances and surpassed the previous highest score in a game in England, 177-3 set by Norwich in a Norfolk Cup match against Eccles & Attleborough 13 years ago.

But Alcester’s points haul fell well short of the world record score of 350-0 set by French Third Division side Lavardac against Vergt in 1984.

Vergt, who conceded 66 tries which were then valued at our points, offered only passive resistance in protest at having four players suspended. The previous week they were beaten 236-0 by Gujah-Misters in similar circumstances.