A few surprises were sprung in the starting line-up with Alex Bruce selected at right back and Balkestein at centre back with David Wright on the bench, whilst Liam Trotter and Jaime Peters also started with Irish midfielder Owen Garvan being named on the bench.
Town started brightly and in the opening exchanges were posing the greatest threat on goal. After less than a minute, midfielder Jaime Peters burst through into the Coventry area and looked set to score when a superb sliding tackle from Ben Turner took the ball away in the nick of time.
Slowly Coventry started to get more of a foothold in the game - with on-loan signing from Chelsea Patrick van Aanholt putting in some fine work and in the 10th minute they took the lead.
A long kick forward from Sky Blues keeper Keiren Westwood looked harmless enough as it floated towards the Town penalty area but keeper Richard Wright left his line and was stranded after poor defending from Town allowed Republic of Ireland international Clinton Morrison to win possession and curl a well executed finish into the top corner.
The goal seemed to shake Town, and despite having controlled the early stages of the game, Coventry were now firmly in the driving seat which lead to Town's shaky defence cracking again just 15 minutes later.
The defence once again failed to clear the ball on two or three occasions and when Isaac Osbourne crossed in to the near post, Morrison got in front of his man and sent a bullet header past Wright to double the home sides lead with just 25 minutes on the clock.
The second goal could have been the signal for Town to fold but instead Roy Keane's men kept fighting and got straight back into the game four minutes later.
The effective Jon Stead spotted van Aanholt out of position and played the perfect pass into Jon Walters, who tucked away his one-on-one with impressive composure to reduce the arrears to a single goal on the half hour mark.
Keane must have got into Town at half time as they came out far stronger after the interval. They pegged the home side back with wave after wave of attack and looked particuarly threatening after Owen Garvan replaced the injured David Norris.
Impressive home keeper Westwood was forced into a couple of flying stops and Osbourne and Morrison both came to their rescue with last-ditch headed clearances to preseve their sides lead which was by now coming under intense pressure from Town.
Sky Blues boss Chris Coleman had to rearrange again because of injury but, with van Aanholt pushed forward into midfield, they began to rediscover an attacking edge that was enough to see they through despite five minutes of injury time being played.