Mark Robins hailed Coventry City striker Ellis Simms for scoring the “perfect” hat-trick to blow away relegation-bound Rotherham United at the CBS Arena. The Sky Blues returned to winning ways after back-to-back Championship defeats with a stunning first-half show against the bottom of the league Millers, taking a 4-0 lead into the break and adding a fifth in stoppage time.

Simms’ bagged his second matchball in the space of eight days, having hit a treble past Maidstone in the FA Cup, while Joel Latibeaudiere and Fabio Tavares also got on the scoresheet.

“It was a good start,” said the Coventry manager, reflecting on the 5-0 victory over his former club. “Within the first five minutes their goalkeeper has dropped one onto Ellis’s head to put us 1-0 up and settle any nerves that may have been there.

“They generally scrap and fight and he (Leam Richardson) picked a really athletic side but we blew them away in the first 37 minutes. Ellis scored a perfect hat-trick – left foot, right foot, header. He’d not scored one before and now he’s got two in a the space of a week. That’s brilliant for him, brilliant for us and brilliant for his confidence.

“Joel got a header from a corner and there was some good work there. Kasey Palmer and the back line was good; a lot more aggressive than we were last week, which was needed. I thought Kels controlled the middle of the park with Torpy, and up front Haji and Ellis are starting to combine pretty well together.

“And then when we made the changes with Callum O’Hare and Matty Godden coming in with Milan, and then Fabio later on – and those two starting to link up as well. And we got a little bit of a cameo for Kai Andrews at the end, which was nice.”

He added: “Fabio’s finish for the fifth was outstanding and Joel’s header; I think he was higher than the crossbar when it went in. It was just a really good performance and it was much needed because we really needed the three points, and to get it in the style and manner we got it was really pleasing. The clean sheet was a brilliant clean sheet as well, because we needed that.

“We need to recover right now because we have a really big game again on Saturday at Watford.”

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