This may not be a classic derby but it had the usual characteristics of plenty of effort and no little drama.
The home side started in crisper form than their local rivals and could have gone into an early lead.
After the expected neighbourly sparing, they went close through Aron Gunnarsson in the ninth minute. Leon Best, just crowned Championship player of the month, did well to feed a pass inside to the Iceland international.
Gunnarsson had precious little time to stab the ball forward with the outside of his foot and it flew just over the bar.
Gunnarsson, back in the team after a poor start to the season, was then set up by Clinton Morrison and forced Chris Weale into a save.
But slowly Nigel Pearson's men began to establish a firmly foothold in the game. Lloyd Dyer provided their first real attacking moment of the game in the 17th minute when he did very well to skip past Martin Cranie and shot just over.
Paul Gallagher went a couple of inches closer just a couple of minutes later, when a whipped in cross-cum-shot flew over everyone including Keiren Westwood only to hit the bar and bounce out.
Coventry were in danger of letting things slip, but just in the nick of time Sammy Clingan produced something special to put them in front.
Gallagher was ruled to have handled just outside his area which presented the former Norwich midfielder with an opportunity to display his dead-ball skills, which he did with a curling 23-yard finish.
The start of the second half mirrored the first, with both sides scrapping for superiority without creating much in the way of chances.
But Pearson took the bull by the horns on the hour and made a triple substitution. And how it paid off.
Ten minutes later sub Steve Howard headed on for fellow replacement Martyn Waghorn, who ran through to score.
That ensured that justice was done and honours were even.